* 


LOVE    IS    A    SPIRIT 


21  flovel 


BY 


JULIAN    HAWTHORNE 


NEW  YORK 
HARPER  &  BROTHERS  PUBLISHERS 

1896 


Copyright,  1896,  by  JULIAN  HAWTHORNE. 

All  rights  reserved. 


LOVE   IS  A  SPIRIT 


"  Thy  Hornbook  I  cannot  spell- 
In  me  all  Wisdom's  Secrets  dwell. 
Prove  me  Fool  by  Rule  of  Thumb — 
Blind  without  me  were  Heaven,  and  dumb." 

[OR  an  hour  before  he  came  the  girl 
had  been  sitting  nearly  motionless 
on  the  bench  overlooking  the  rose-garden. 

She  leaned  against  a  pillar ;  her  right  arm, 
bare  to  the  elbow,  lay  along  the  broad  mar- 
ble balustrade  of  the  veranda ;  the  coolness 
of  the  smooth  stone  was  grateful  in  the 
tropic  afternoon.  It  was  an  afternoon  that 
drowsed  and  dreamed  and  distilled  fragrance. 
The  May  rains  had  been  sending  herald 
showers  before  them  for  a  week  past,  and 


sky,  mountains,  trees,  the  whole  flowery  vo- 
luptuous earth,  were  lulled  in  sensuous  de- 
light. Beauty  was  everywhere. 

Beauty  was  everywhere ;  but  though  the 
full  white  lids  of  the  girl's  eyes  were  only 
half  closed,  she  was  unregardful  of  things 
without.  She  was  gazing  quietly  into  the 
realms  of  her  soul. 

The  spiritual  world,  inhabited  unawares  by 
the  human  spirit  even  during  life  in  the  body, 
is  at  rare  intervals  open  to  consciousness. 
Ordinarily,  as  the  ripple  on  the  surface  of 
water  obscures  the  secrets  of  the  depths,  so 
physical  sense  obscures  our  vision  of  the  in- 
ward life ;  but  the  depths  are  there,  and  the 
recesses  of  the  soul  —  let  what  turmoil  may 
prevail  without — remain  forever  tranquil. 

For  conflict  belongs  to  transitory  existence 
only;  the  immortal  is  unassailable,  and  moves 
unceasingly  forward  in  a  current  too  pro- 
found to  be  perceived.  Beings  whom  no  end 
threatens,  who  after  eternities  of  divine  activ- 
ity to  beatify  their  fellows  and  beautify  their 


world  find  themselves  immeasurably  more 
able  than  at  first  —  for  such  there  are  no 
clashings  of  will  with  law,  no  discrepancy  be- 
tween means  and  ends,  no  discords.  They 
hear  the  rhymings  of  truth  with  love,  see 
forms  of  use  transfigured  into  beauty,  and 
their  hearts  beat  in  the  rhythm  of  common 
effort  towards  universal  good. 

Upon  this  inner  world,  through  the  portals 
of  her  virgin  heart,  the  girl  looked.  Her 
heart,  though  virgin,  was  not  vacant.  Pure 
youth  is  always  weaving,  out  of  its  beliefs, 
intuitions,  and  aspirations,  the  image  of  an 
ideal  being.  To  each  of  us  the  opposite  sex 
is  a  mirror  reflecting  the  reverse  image  of 
our  own  best  selves,  which,  because  reversed, 
is  made  pregnant  of  the  life  which  isolation 
never  can  engender.  Over  this  image  of  all 
lovableness  the  maiden  throws  the  glamour 
of  whatever  is  nobly  masculine,  while  the 
man  consecrates  it  with  womanliness. 

But  the  image  requires  a  concrete  nucleus 
on  which  to  model  it.  Some  fair  face  or 


tender  voice,  some  manly  look  or  picturesque 
action,  gives  the  hint ;  and  straightway  the 
creation  glows  with  life  and  beauty. 

Fully  to  realize  the  ideal  is  a  more  critical 
matter.  Yet,  as  a  child  arrays  with  the  graces 
of  its  imagination  the  first  block  of  wood 
that  comes  to  hand,  and  finds  it  lovable,  so 
has  the  rankest  pretender  a  fair  chance  of 
being  accepted  as  the  true  prince  or  princess. 
But  while  the  child  may  throw  aside  its  doll, 
the  fable  of  Frankenstein  pictures  the  plight 
of  the  deceived  lover. 

But  how  happens  it  that,  in  a  question  to 
answer  which  the  finest  faculties  of  the  soul 
are  addressed,  mistake  should  be  so  often 
made?  The  rankest  obtuse  on -looker  may 
see  at  a  glance  the  error  to  which  the  exqui- 
site organization  of  the  lover  is  incorrigibly 
blind. 

Omne  ignotum  pro  magnifico.  Youth  and 
maiden,  in  the  mystic  glory  of  pubescence, 
are  not  as  men  and  women  of  the  world,  cate- 
chising the  very  Eros  and  Psyche;  rather  are 


5 

they  prone  to  canonize  the  devil.  The 
more  they  abhor  evil  in  the  abstract,  the 
less  ready  are  they  to  credit  it  in  the  con- 
crete. 

Moreover,  as  the  full  cloud  yearns  to  give 
itself  in  rain,  as  the  winged  bird  fain  would 
fly,  as  the  trained  athlete  chafes  to  put  forth 
his  strength,  so  must  needs  the  potent  lov- 
er approve  potency  by  act.  This  limitless 
wealth  was  given  to  spend,  and  spent  it 
shall  be,  though  cast  at  the  feet  of  swine. 
The  first  impulse  of  love  is  to  give ;  the 
craving  to  receive  a  like  gift  in  return  comes 
not  till  afterwards. 

It  is  in  that  craving  that  the  frailty  of  the 
complex  emotion  lies.  To  love  is  safety  and 
increase,  for  its  prototype  is  the  Creator ; 
but  to  suffer  love  is  perilous,  since  its  depen- 
dence is  upon  the  creature.  Yet  to  this  end 
were  we  born — to  love  and  be  beloved ;  the 
passion  is  as  sweet  as  the  action ;  and  both 
must  mingle  to  make  the  full  draught  of 
human  happiness.  But  what  marvel  if,  seek- 


ing  for  our  birthright,  rich  in  instinct  and 
poor  in  experience,  we  are  misled  by  wan- 
dering fires? — or  can  any  danger,  incurred 
for  such  a  birthright,  be  too  great? 

The  girl  suddenly  changed  her  position, 
and  looked  towards  the  right.  The  height 
on  which  the  house  stood  sloped  abruptly 
to  a  plain,  bordered  by  a  forest,  from  which 
emerged  a  road  that  crossed  the  plain  in  the 
direction  of  the  house.  A  man  on  horseback 
had  ridden  forth  from  the  wood  and  was 
cantering  down  the  road. 

She  watched  his  approach  with  an  intent- 
ness  that  made  her  soul  shine  through  her 
eyes.  There  was  a  tightness  about  her  heart, 
caused  by  wide  emotions  surging  through  it, 
as  ocean  tides  rush  through  a  Hellespont. 
With  a  sigh  the  pressure  was  relieved,  and 
sparkling  currents  of  delight  frolicked 
through  her  veins,  and  changed  the  quick 
pallor  of  her  cheeks  to  rose.  Her  brain  was 
confused  with  vague  images  of  joy  at  hand. 
She  was  unconscious  of  her  body ;  she  never 


knew  that  she  strained  her  soft  hands  to- 
gether till  the  serpent's  head  on  her  ring  bit 
the  flesh.  Physical  sensation  was  dominated 
by  the  music  in  her  soul,  made  by  love,  which 
is  a  spirit. 


II 


'"Shall  Impotence  the  Burden  bear, 
While  Strength  goes  free  as  weightless  air?' 
Aye,  since  all  Powers,  mete  and  bound 
In  yonder  helpless  Babe  are  found !" 

}UT  though  lovers  are  wont  to  lament 
the  intractability  of  matter,  it  is  yet 
a  dispensation  for  which — did  their  wisdom 
equal  their  ardor — they  should  be  passing 
grateful. 

We  do  not  give  infants  naked  poniards  to 
play  with.  Sharp  points  and  edges  must  be 
sheathed  to  them  until  they  learn  prudence. 
Now,  the  scimitar  of  Saladin  itself  is  dull 
beside  the  disincarnate  soul ;  and  mortal  life 
is  the  sheath  divinely  appointed  to  afford  us 
opportunity  to  learn  the  handling  thereof, 
without  too  much  risk  of  cutting  our  ringers 
or  stabbing  ourselves  to  the  heart. 


Lovers  cry  out  against  the  weariness  and 
delay  of  time  and  space,  which  separate  them 
by  hours  and  days,  by  seas  and  mountains ; 
and  denounce  the  clumsiness  of  the  flesh, 
which  is  always  deflecting  or  misinterpreting 
the  lightning  messages  of  the  mind.  But 
these  obstacles  are  in  truth  beneficent  coun- 
sellors, which  not  only  guard  the  priceless 
privilege  of  second  thought,  but  offer  us  the 
jewels  of  patience,  fortitude,  reason,  faith, 
and  hope  —  jewels  created  by  our  struggle 
against  the  inertia  of  circumstance  and  the 
subtleties  of  temptation. 

Even  though,  as  the  old  theologians  main- 
tained, there  be  damnation  in  matter,  it  is  cer- 
tain that  salvation  would  be  impossible  with- 
out it.  Conceive  yourself,  if  you  can,  born 
inexperienced  into  a  state  of  being  where 
thought  is  presence;  where  the  interiors  of 
heart  and  mind  are  pictured  in  the  exterior 
environment ;  where  there  is  no  interval  be- 
tween desire  and  accomplishment,  will  and 
act ;  above  all,  where  that  balance  between 


10 

good  and  evil  which  we  call  free  will,  which 
is  the  very  sculptor  of  character,  is  non- 
existent— imagine  yourself  launched  in  such 
an  ocean,  with  every  sail  of  hereditary  evil 
spread,  with  no  pilot  memory  to  stand  at  the 
helm,  and  no  warning  chart  of  the  deadly 
whirlpool  of  selfhood  to  admonish  your 
course  withal.  Where  and  how  would  that 
voyage  end  ? 

No ;  to  be  an  angel,  even  in  the  proper 
world  of  angels,  is  no  easy  thing.  Mortal 
existence,  whether  merry  or  not,  can  hardly 
be  too  long  or  too  material  to  fit  us  for  such 
an  undertaking.  Even  the  seeming  empty 
fprms  and  ceremonies  of  social  intercourse 
are  precious  leading-strings  and  danger-sig- 
nals, without  which  fatal  calamities  would 
be  yet  more  frequent  than  they  are.  Blessed, 
then,  be  the  body,  and  all  that  it  involves ! 
in  itself  it  is  an  unadulterated  benefit  to  its 
owner,  and  whatever  mischief  he  contrives 
to  accomplish  through  it  would  have  been  in- 
definitely more  virulent  but  for  its  restraint. 


Ill 

"Costliest  raiment  purse  can  buy 
Flatters  not  like  lover's  eye, 
Which  pranks  its  object  in  such  trim 
As  beggars  Earth,  makes  Heaven  dim." 

|E  AN  WHILE  the  horseman  has 
passed  the  gate,  reached  the  door, 
dismounted,  and  traversed  the  central  hall  of 
the  house.  He  stepped  out  on  the  veranda ; 
as  he  did  so  the  girl  rose  from  the  bench 
with  the  air  of  having  been  unexpectedly 
aroused  from  reverie. 

In  a  world  of  pure  spirit  the  interposition 
of  such  a  shield  would  have  been  impracti- 
cable. But,  in  fact,  this  actual  moment  of 
meeting  hands  and  eyes  affected  her  as  an 
anticlimax.  No  real  man  could  ever  hope 
to  rival  his  own  heroic  figure  in  the  heart  of 
the  woman  who  loves  him  and  has  just  been 


12 

thinking  how  divine  he  is !  Nor  can  any  en- 
counter of  mortal  lovers  fulfil  their  forecast 
of  it.  But  it  must,  moreover,  be  noted  that 
in  this  case  love  had  not  overtly  been  in 
question  on  either  side.  The  man  was  an 
agreeable  acquaintance  of  comparatively  re- 
cent introduction  —  a  welcome  help  towards 
disposing  of  the  diminishing  remnant  of  the 
tropic  season ;  and  the  woman  was  a  charm- 
ing girl,  fresh  and  unsophisticated,  in  whom 
a  gentleman  who  had  had  some  experience 
of  the  hollowness  of  the  world  could  not  but 
feel  a  genial  interest. 

Such  at  least  was  the  appearance,  in  this 
world  of  appearances,  to  be  invalidated  by 
conjecture  only.  It  is  wonderful  under  how 
many  veils  and  disguises  this  spirit,  love, 
conceals  itself,  as  though  aware  of  its  own 
dangerous  quality,  and  solicitous  to  protect 
its  votaries  to  the  last.  Albeit  the  unrivalled 
and  unique  despot  of  mankind,  it  may  plau- 
sibly be  construed  as  indifference,  coquetry, 
compassion,  friendship,  courtesy,  rudeness, 


13 

contempt,  and  hatred ;  nor  are  any  so  long 
blind  to  its  true  character  as  are  those  par- 
ticular persons  to  whom  its  recognition  is  of 
most  vital  consequence. 

"  Here  I  am  again,  you  see,  Miss  Yolande, 
ready  to  risk  wearing  out  my  welcome !  Have 
I  done  it,  at  last  ?" 

With  what  a  lovely  frankness  she  put 
forth  from  the  shoulder  her  virginal  arm, 
letting  it  fall  again  to  her  side,  after  her 
hand  had  touched  his !  What  maidenly  dig- 
nity she  had  ;  and  how  formidably  searching 
was  the  slow,  shy  regard  of  her  long,  dark 
eyes! 

"You  will  sooner  wear  out  your  horse's 
shoes  than  your  welcome  here,  Mr.  Strath- 
spey !" 

How  this  man  made  other  things  seem  far 
off  or  invisible !  He  was  real — almost  too 
real !  It  was  hard  to  think  beyond  the  out- 
lines of  his  figure  —  that  light,  athletic  fig- 
ure, booted  and  spurred,  with  head  erect,  and 
lean,  masculine  features.  Something  in  him 


14 

— whether  or  not  you  quite  liked  it  —  held 
you. 

"I'll  have  him  shod  with  chilled  steel 
henceforth." 

"Why  not  ride  Pegasus,  who  needs  no 
shoes  at  all,  and  goes  swift  as  thought  ?" 

"  By  Jove !  if  I  only  could  catch  him ! 
But  I  am  a  man  who  is  obliged  to  keep  on 
the  earth ;  the  winged  horse  would  throw 
me  at  the  first  bound,  and  rid  you  of  me  once 
for  all." 

How  keen  and  yet  soft  was  his  way  of 
looking  at  one !  How  handsome  he  was 
when  he  smiled !  It  showed  the  strength 
and  fineness  of  his  face.  What  a  thorough 
man  he  was,  from  head  to  heel ! 

"  Come  on  a  tortoise,  if  you  must — only 
come." 

Never  was  there  another  face  so  singular 
and  absorbing  as  hers.  The  subtlety  of  its 
forms  defied  definition.  A  touch  of  the 
Greek,  but  with  a  soul  in  it ;  a  far  sugges- 
tion of  the  Sphinx,  but  spiritualized.  Or 


was  it  pure  modern,  the  flower  of  eighteen 
centuries  of  Christendom  ?  Ah,  well,  it  was 
Yolande — expression  incarnate  :  a  shimmer- 
ing flow  of  mysteries  and  meanings — of  mys- 
teries that  were  meanings,  and  of  meanings 
that  were  mysteries. 

"  Will  you  have  some  tea  ?" 

"  No,  thanks.  Our  talk  sha'n't  be  stran- 
gled with  beverages." 

Their  talk !  What  had  they  been  saying 
to  each  other  ?  Words  are  wheels,  on  which 
you  roll  along  and  dream  other  things.  But 
that  deep  voice  of  his  vibrated  in  her  ears, 
and  reached  a  secret  place  low  in  her  bosom, 
whence  she  took  her  breath.  It  said  things 
interior  to  words,  which  she  loved  to  hear. 

"  Shall  we  walk  in  the  rose-garden,  then  ? 
and  you  can  smoke  a  cigar." 

"  By  Jove,  yes ! — the  rose-garden.  I  never 
yet  had  roses  enough." 

"  Come  with  me  and  you  shall  have  them." 


IV 

"  Dawn's  delicate  Disdain,  rank  Noon, 
Eve's  Roses,  star-discovering  Night, 
Sea,  holy  Hills— but  hold  my  tune, 
Quick  creatures  of  my  Will  and  Sight." 

I 

[S  they  entered  the  garden  the  sun 

sank  behind  the  battlements  of  a 
thunder-cloud,  which  the  powers  of  the  air 
had  been  building  along  the  western  ho- 
rizon. 

The  garden  might  have  covered  a  couple 
of  acres ;  but  the  rose-bushes  were  so  high 
and  thick,  and  the  paths  such  Daedalian 
windings,  that,  once  in  the  garden,  you  lost 
all  sense  of  its  extent.  Its  dimensions  and 
beauty  became  subjective  of  the  measure 
and  quality  of  the  beholder's  soul,  and  to 
these  two,  at  this  time,  may  have  appeared 
to  touch  the  verge  of  the  infinite.  The  roses 


I? 

of  all  Persian  poetry  were  here,  and  the  con- 
ditions (so  thought  the  visitor)  such  as  the 
imagination  of  a  Saadi  could  not  have  sur- 
passed. 

Tropical  twilights  are  brief,  and  the  phan- 
tasmagory  of  the  sunset  marshalled  itself 
swiftly.  Early  in  the  afternoon  there  had 
been  a  storm  amidst  the  western  mountain- 
tops,  too  distant  for  its  thunderous  accom- 
paniment to  reach  the  ear,  though  the  light- 
ning flashes  had  been  visible,  and — swept  by 
wind-gusts  in  aerial  curves — the  brown,  filmy 
curtains  of  descending  rain.  All  the  while, 
high  above  the  shadowy  tumult,  the  upper 
sky  was  serene  and  pure,  with  shreds  of 
snowy  cloud,  diaphanous  as  frost  on  a  win- 
dow-parie,  drawn  out  upon  its  tender  blue. 

At  the  going  down  of  the  sun  the  storm, 
broken  into  fragments,  drifted  in  heavy 
masses  athwart  the  clear  luminousness  be- 
yond, and  gathered  in  frowning  walls  and 
towers  of  vaporous  masonry.  These  in  their 
turn  were  shattered,  and  the  detached  heaps 


i8 

of  ruin  assumed  the  likeness  of  amorphous 
monsters  and  grotesque  figures,  the  rout  of 
a  titanic  battle.  By  imperceptible  degrees 
disintegrating  and  recombining,  they  were 
tossed  in  darkling  relief  against  the  horizon. 

The  translucency  of  the  lower  atmosphere 
was  tinged  with  hues  faint  and  delicate  at 
first  as  the  rainbow  shadings  on  a  fairy's 
wings,  but  ever  glowing  and  kindling,  till 
you  would  have  thought  that  the  jewelled 
walls  of  the  Celestial  City  had  dissolved  in 
air,  and  were  flowing  in  prismatic  tides  above 
the  earth.  A  broad  river  of  spiritual  chryso- 
prase  stretched  along  the  west,  islanded 
with  gold  and  crimson,  and  with  shores  of 
fretted  violet,  upon  which  the  sinister  le- 
gions of  the  storm  pursued  one  another 
with  wild  contortions.  Towards  the  zenith 
the  sky  still  kept  its  azure ;  and  the  moon, 
three  days  old,  both  her  delicate  horns  point- 
ing upwards,  seemed  slowly  to  approach  the 
earth. 

The  girl  and  the  man  sauntered  side  by 


19 

side  along  the  winding  paths.  The  bushes, 
bourgeoning  outward,  inclined  the  two  fig- 
ures towards  each  other  in  gentle  recurrent 
contacts.  Beauty,  and  the  hour,  wrought  an 
interior  mood,  from  which,  after  a  while,  they 
reached  an  imaginative  vein,  half  playful, 
half  serious. 

"  It  is  like  hearing  distant  music  when  you 
are  in  a  reverie,  to  see  that,"  said  she,  indi- 
cating by  a  movement  of  the  head  the  glo- 
ries of  the  sky. 

"  It  makes  me  think  of  a  battle  in  Homer," 
he  returned — "  the  heroes  struggling  together 
gigantically;  and  those  shadowy  figures  hov- 
ering above  them  are  the  Immortals,  encour- 
aging the  Trojans  or  the  Greeks." 

"  The  plains  of  Troy  never  looked  so 
beautiful  as  those  spaces  of  green  and  rose. 
Such  shapes  and  colors  are  like  a  picture  of 
thoughts  that  never  can  be  spoken." 

"  It  is  ominous — that  dark  wrack,"  said  he, 
"  It  is  like  the  shadow  of  mortality,  that 
looms  and  passes." 


20 

"You  cannot  separate  it  from  the  glory 
behind  it,"  she  answered.  "  We  ourselves 
are  darkness;  but  the  light  that  is  not  we 
gives  us  meaning  and  nobility." 

That  soft  touch  of  her  shoulder  against 
his  arm — it  was  more  than  a  touch ;  it  lin- 
gered, and  made  every  nerve  a  duct  of  sweet- 
ness, pouring  like  honey  into  his  heart.  Was 
she  aware  of  it  ?  Was  not  the  very  sweet- 
ness due  to  the  harmony  between  them? 
Were  they  not  thinking  each  other's  thoughts 
— alive  with  the  same  emotions  ?  If  not,  all 
intuition  was  a  lie. 

But  no  !  there  could  be  and  must  be  noth- 
ing of  the  sort.  It  was  well  for  him  to  love 
her — she  could  represent  for  him  all  pure  and 
lovely  things ;  but  it  would  be  far  from  well 
were  she  to  love  him.  Let  this  vindicate 
the  worthiness  of  his  devotion  —  that  by  no 
word  or  intimation  would  he  ever  permit  her 
to  suspect  it.  She  did  not  love  him ;  she  felt 
in  him  merely  the  generous  confidence  of  a 
girl  in  an  honest  man  much  older  than  her- 


21 

self.  She  loved  beauty,  romance,  noble  con- 
duct, and  high  ideals ;  she  had  never  sought 
or  found  an  individual  embodiment  of  these 
qualities.  She  recognized  and  enjoyed  in 
him  an  apt  and  friendly  sympathizer  with 
the  graceful  abstractions  in  which  her  mind 
loved  to  dwell — and  that  was  all.  There 
could  be,  for  her,  no  peril  in  their  inter- 
course ;  and  as  for  him,  if  he  chose  to  expose 
his  heart  to  the  delicious  stab  of  her  un- 
conscious dagger,  that  was  his  affair. 

Moreover,  if  this  were  self-abnegation,  still 
more  was  it  wisdom.  Sunlight  on  a  distant 
mountain-summit  is  more  exquisite  than  that 
which  falls  around  us ;  and  so  is  love  that  can- 
not be  ours  than  that  which  is  in  our  embrace. 
The  severest  test  of  the  soul's  strength  is 
possession.  True  passion  is  a  paradox — fire 
burning  in  ice ;  within  that  medium  it  is  opal- 
ine and  divine ;  but  once  the  ice  is  melted 
nothing  but  an  earthly  flame  remains. 

So  they  sauntered  on,  and  were  hidden 
out  of  sight  amongst  the  roses. 


"Beauty  cheapening  Arts, 

Fragrance  Joy  bestows; 
Love  in  virgin  Hearts 
Seeking — I  found  a  Rose!" 

•un 

"HE    heavy    blooms,  weighting    the 


slender  sprays,  bent  them  across  the 
path ;  the  thorns  caught  the  thin  fabric  of 
her  white  dress,  and  he  pricked  his  ringers 
in  freeing  her  from  them.  They  smiled 
at  the  thorns,  but  the  flowers  recalled  them 
to  a  serious  felicity.  Roses  hung  higher 
than  their  heads ;  roses  swept  their  hands 
as  they  passed ;  they  trod  upon  fallen 
showers  of  rose  petals.  There  were  roses 
of  many  colors  —  crimson,  pink,  white,  yel- 
low, in  countless  delicate  gradations ;  small 
and  fairy-like,  sumptuous  and  large;  some 
shut  up  tight  in  baby  buds,  others  half 


23 

unfolding  their  glowing  fingers  from  their 
golden  hearts,  others  again  disclosing  the 
treasure  with  a  lovely  frankness,  as  who 
should  say,  "  We  are  the  flowers  of  love — 
love  us !"  But  these  were  fragile ;  at  a  touch 
they  made  themselves  into  a  rosy  shower, 
and  were  not.  The  buds  were  a  promise 
unconsummated ;  only  rarely  bloomed  a  per- 
fect rose,  vigorous  and  flawless,  which  could 
be  plucked  and  smelled,  and  yet  endure. 

She  gave  him  such  a  one,  remarking,  "  It 
will  last  till  you  get  home ;  and  a  rose  that 
lasts  an  hour  will  live  forever,  for  in  an  hour 
we  can  learn  to  know  it  well  enough  to  rec- 
ognize it  in  heaven." 

As  she  turned  to  him  with  the  last  words 
his  heart  beat  stronger ;  so  close  to  his  was 
the  gleaming  beauty  of  her  eyes,  the  warm 
fragrance  of  her  mouth.  Every  feature  of 
her  presence  wrought  upon  him  :  the  flowing 
curves  about  her  waist  and  bosom,  the  undu- 
lation of  her  supple  flank,  the  pale  glow  of 
her  arms  and  bust  through  the  semi-trans- 


24 

parent  lawn,  the  rhythm  of  her  breathing. 
How  well  she  set  her  foot  upon  the  ground, 
the  elastic  knee  straightening  as  she  swayed 
forward  to  the  next  step!  Oh,  innocent  al- 
lurement and  sweet  health  of  virginal  wom- 
anhood !  Oh,  mystic  sex,  the  power  of  pow- 
ers ! 

"  There  would  be  no  roses,"  said  he,  "  if 
it  were  not  for  girls  like  you.  " 

She  smiled  her  recognition  of  that  spirit- 
ual appreciation.  When  she  smiled  no  man 
could  help  but  worship  her.  The  light  of 
her  happiness  seemed  to  radiate  through 
her  face.  How  could  anything  mortal  be 
so  heavenly  bright  ? 

Happy,  in  truth,  she  was.  The  man  be- 
side her  stimulated  her  soul  like  an  elixir. 
She  felt  a  personal  delight  in  all  appertain- 
ing to  him  :  the  manly  carriage  of  his  shoul- 
ders ;  the  firm,  shaven  cheeks  and  chin ;  his 
hands,  strong  and  full  of  meaning,  with  fine, 
crisp  hair  on  the  wrists  and  the  back.  How 
beautiful  to  be  so  strong  and  fearless — to  be  a 


25 

man  !  Were  there  in  her,  or  in  the  world,  any 
good  that  he  had  not,  how  joyfully  would  she 
bestow  it  on  him  !  He  could  crush  her  in  a 
moment,  if  he  would  ;  but  he  would  not — 
he  would  protect  her,  because  he  was  good 
and  she  was  helpless.  How  beautiful  to  be 
protected  by  him,  to  surrender  to  him,  to 
let  his  nobility  and  generosity  decree  her 
laws  and  acts !  Till  now  she  had  valued 
her  independence  above  all  things ;  what 
delight,  then,  to  give  it  up  to  him !  But 
perhaps  he  would  not  care  for  her  gifts. 
Truly,  he  did  not  need  them  ;  he  was  suffi- 
cient to  himself.  Ah,  but  there  were  sweet 
things  that  she  could  do  for  him  which  he 
could  not  but  be  glad  to  accept,  let  him  be 
as  proud  as  he  might. 

These  thoughts  and  feelings  were  not  out- 
wardly manifested,  nor  were  they  even  in  the 
foreground  of  her  mind  ;  training  and  hered- 
ity kept  them  back.  But  they  were  more 
real  than  what  was  suffered  to  appear.  And, 
after  all,  they  were  manifest,  though  not  by 


26 

conventional  signs.  Essential  woman  is  or- 
ganized emotion ;  in  the  presence  of  what 
she  loves  how  can  she  be  hidden?  And 
what  had  Yolande  to  fear?  If  he  loved  her, 
all  was  well;  if  he  did  not,  nothing  in  this 
world  could  make  her  feel  a  wound,  no 
other  good  could  make  life  tolerable.  It 
were  an  insult  to  love  to  imagine  such  a 
thing.  But  the  dignity  of  womanhood  was 
in  her  keeping?  Could  dignity  be  based  on 
such  a  tenure?  The  highest  glory  of  wom- 
an was  to  love ;  if  she  loved  in  vain,  it  was 
death,  perhaps,  but  how  was  it  disgrace? 
It  would  be  disgrace  to  fear  such  a  death. 
It  would  be  sweet  to  die. 

As  the  dusk  fell  the  perfume  of  the  gar- 
den became  more  sensibly  delicious,  as  if  the 
visibility  of  the  roses  had  been  transmuted 
into  fragrance.  It  was  a  delicate  swoon  of 
odors,  in  which  what  was  material  seemed 
to  pass  into  the  plane  of  spirit.  The  two 
entered  a  path  which  led  them  along  the 
boundary  of  the  enclosure;  over  the  wall 


27 

extended  the  boughs  of  orange-trees,  laden 
with  blossoms.  He  plucked  a  twig  of  these  ; 
and  then  they  left  the  garden,  remounted 
the  veranda,  and  sat  down  together  beside 
the  marble  balustrade. 

"  The  last  of  the  sunset  and  the  first  of  the 
moon, "said  the  girl;  "  I  like  this  hour  best." 

"  Have  you  often  sunsets  like  that  here  in 
the  tropics — and  such  moons  ?" 

"  They  are  best  now,  just  before  the  rains. 
The  air  seems  to  me  like  a  mighty  nation 
preparing  for  a  crusade.  There  are  signs 
and  portents,  and  gatherings  of  the  hosts, 
and  splendid  councils  of  the  princes  in  their 
shining  armor,  and  processions  with  stream- 
ing banners  and  rainbow  robes ;  and  once  in 
a  while  dark  hours  of  humiliation  and  pray- 
er; and  then  dazzling  tumults  of  hope  and 
rejoicing.  I  am  always  forgetting  that  you 
are  from  the  North,"  she  added  ;  "  but,  after 
all,  all  I  know  of  you  is  that  you  are  Mr. 
Strathspey.  Were  you  never  in  our  island 
till  now?" 


28 

"  I  should  like  to  forget  that  I  was  ever 
anywhere  else,"  replied  he,  after  a  pause. 

"Have  you  been  unhappy?"  she  asked, 
her  low  voice  falling  lower  with  innocent 
sympathy. 

He  turned  his  head  and  looked  at  her  with 
a  certain  pregnant  vehemence  in  his  eyes. 
But  he  restrained  himself ;  this  was  perilous 
ground.  To  love  was  to  hold  sacred.  Un- 
less this  girl  was  sacred  to  him,  heaven — 
which  meant  immortality  with  her  hereafter 
— was  closed  to  him  forever.  And  he  must 
not  only  himself  abstain  from  speaking  or 
acting  what  looked  towards  love,  but  must 
divert  her  also  from  the  path  in  which  (as  he 
could  no  longer  but  be  aware)  she  was  be- 
ginning to  walk. 

"  My  child,"  said  he,  suddenly  assuming 
the  smile  of  a  man  of  the  world,  "  I  don't  set 
up  to  anything  unique  or  wonderful ;  and  let 
me  tell  you  that  nothing  could  be  more  won- 
derful and  unique  than  a  man,  old  enough  to 
be  your  father,  who  had  never  been  unhap- 


29 

py."  To  himself  he  added, "  Come !  that  was 
well  put." 

But  she  was  at  once  conscious  of  the  descent 
to  artificiality.  "  Why  do  you  treat  me  so  ?" 
she  demanded,  with  the  terrible  sincerity  pos- 
sible only  to  the  pure  and  single-minded. 
She  looked  at  him  seriously  and  unswerving- 
ly. "  Even  a  child  may  help  a  man,  if  he  will 
let  her — and  I  am  more  than  a  child !" 

He  dropped  his  eyes,  and  said,  uneasily, 
"  The  worst  of  a  fellow's  past  is  that  it  be- 
comes the  rudder  of  his  future  —  the  pilot 
that  steers  him,  rather.  If  I  told  you — " 
He  broke  off.  A  dozen  words  more  would 
have  swept  danger  from  their  path  forever ; 
but  he  could  not  get  them  out ;  they  seemed 
too  brutal.  They  would  be  irrevocable,  too  ; 
and  the  danger,  identical  with  her  ignorance 
of  the  truth,  was  to  him  the  one  sweet  left  in 
the  world,  and  he  lacked  resolution  to  de- 
stroy it. 

"  If  I  told  you  all  the  annoyances  life  has 
brought  me,  it  would  not  only  bore  you,  but 


3° 

I  should  get  the  blues  myself.  I  think  it 
more  sensible  to  enjoy  the  present.  Don't 
you?" 

"  We  must  understand  a  thing  to  enjoy  it," 
was  her  reply,  "and  you  said  just  now  that 
the  present  is  made  of  the  past.  But  it  wasn't 
your  biography  I  asked  to  know,  but  the 
deeper  thing — the  spiritual  part.  As  it  would 
be  if  we  met  in  heaven,"  she  added,  after 
musing  for  a  moment. 

"  You  must  come  down  to  earth  if  we  are 
to  meet,"  said  he ;  "  I'm  afraid  I  can't  go  up 
to  you." 

"  Oh,  I  am  here,"  she  returned,  turning  to 
him  with  a  lovely  smile  and  gesture,  as  if  to 
say,  "  Touch  me,  and  see." 

The  next  moment  she  blushed.  He  passed 
a  hand  over  his  face,  and  said, "  Even  here 
there  are  obstacles.  I  am  overstaying  my 
time."  He  took  out  his  watch  with  an  apol- 
ogy, and  glanced  at  it.  "  By  Jove !  I  must 

go." 

He  half  rose.     "  No  !"  she  exclaimed,  ve- 


hemently ;  and  involuntarily  obeying  the 
throb  of  her  heart,  her  hands  went  forth 
with  a  gesture,  as  if  to  keep  him  in  his 
seat. 

"  Don't  leave  me  alone,"  she  went  on, 
quickly.  "  The  others  will  be  back  before 
long.  Why  —  and  you  didn't  smoke  your 
cigar,  after  all !  You  must  have  it  now  :  let 
me  get  you  a  match." 

He  put  his  hand  on  her  wrist.  "  Stay 
where  you  are,"  said  he. 

The  change  in  his  voice  affected  her  as 
much  as  his  touch ;  he  perceived  the  vibra- 
tion in  her  nerves,  and,  slowly  relinquishing 
his  grasp,  affected  to  search  his  pockets  for 
a  cigar. 

"  It's  all  going  wrong  again,  but  I  can't 
help  it,"  he  said  to  himself.  "  Perhaps  a 
smoke  may  straighten  me  out.  You're  sure 
you  won't  mind  ?"  he  added  aloud,  pausing 
with  the  poised  match. 

She  only  shook  her  head,  gazing  intently 
at  him  through  the  dusk.  Her  bosom  rose 


32 

and  fell  at  last  with  a  heave  no  longer  to  be 
repressed.  She  was  a-tremble  to  the  mar- 
row, but  happier,  she  thought,  than  she  had 
ever  yet  been.  She  felt  as  if  she  were  being 
carried  through  the  air  whirlingly,  but  to  a 
place  of  peace  and  delight.  As  he  lit  the 
match  and  held  the  flame  before  his  eyes, 
she  swiftly  lifted  her  clasped  hands  to  her 
face  and  pressed  against  her  cheek  the  wrist 
which  he  had  touched.  When  the  veil  of 
flame  had  passed  she  appeared  quite  serene 
and  composed  in  the  young  moonlight. 

He  cleared  his  throat,  and  inhaled  and 
slowly  emitted  a  cloud  of  smoke. 

"  It's  an  awfully  lovely  evening,  sure 
enough,"  he  observed. 

"  Yes.  See  that  strange  cloud  against  the 
bar  of  orange  sky  in  the  west.  It  looks  like 
a  head — a  man's  head." 

"  Do  you  think  so  ?  Strikes  me  more 
like — "  He  checked  himself  suddenly. 

"  Were  you  going  to  say,  like  a  woman's? 
Yes — perhaps  it  does — now.  But  I  often 


33 

wonder  I  never  see  a  cloud  face  that  I  rec- 
ognize. Does  this  look  like  some  one  you 
know?" 

But  he  was  silent,  staring  at  the  face  as  a 
man  stares  at  his  enemy.  In  a  few  moments, 
of  course,  it  dissolved,  and  became  but  a 
formless  cloud  drifting  across  the  fading 
western  glow. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon !"  he  said,  turning  to 
her.  "  Yes — queer  things,  likenesses.  No — 
I  can't  say  it  did." 

It  was  the  shadow  of  the  secret  he  would 
not  tell. 


VI 

'*'  They  win  that  yield ;  who  love,  withdraw ; 
Veiled  Reverence  Things  hid  shall  see. 
I  slew  the  Slave  who  feasted  me, 
To  share  thy  Princely  Pulse  and  Straw." 

|HEY  leaned  against  the  marble  rail- 
ing fronting  each  other,  but  looking 
out  upon  the  rich  obscurity  of  the  garden. 
The  moon  had  begun  to  reign. 

Though  so  young, her  tropic  vitality  made 
her  mightier  than  in  the  north.  The  Cres- 
cent of  light  hung  below,  a  curving  chalice 
accurately  poised.  Its  marvellous  brightness 
made  it  seem  of  larger  radius  than  the  dark 
remnant  of  the  sphere  which  was  upheld 
within  it,  an  orbed  jewel  of  sullen  violet. 
The  brightness,  though  so  effulgent,  was  not 
cold  and  whitely  virginal,  like  the  icy  gleam 
of  Diana's  eyes  when  the  gaze  of  doomed 


35 

Actaeon  burned  in  breathless  ecstasy  upon 
what  had  been  veiled  even  from  Immortals. 
No  ;  this  was  the  Diana  of  Endymion,  warm 
with  celestial  passion,  forsaking  the  austere 
barrenness  of  chastity  and  glowing  divinely 
radiant  from  the  first  draught  of  her  lover's 
manhood.  The  light  of  her  glory  mingled 
with  the  earth  rather  than  shone  upon  it, 
and  everywhere  wrought  delicious  mystery. 
It  seemed  to  dissolve  the  solid  planet  and 
to  recreate  it  in  forms  of  spiritual  poetry. 
All  was  shadowy  and  plastic ;  the  great 
mountains  undulated  a  vaporous  film ;  the 
plain  was  an  expanse  of  luminous  dusk, 
through  which  one  might  plunge  into  a 
magic  underworld  ;  the  darker  masses  of 
the  trees  appeared  to  rest  like  clouds  upon 
the  bosom  of  this  terrestrial  firmament,  and 
to  be  alike  unsubstantial.  Nor  was  this, 
as  in  our  thinner  climate,  a  vision  of  mere 
black  and  white  ;  there  was  the  eloquence 
of  color,  voluptuous  and  of  infinite  subtlety, 
like  memory  of  music  in  a  dream. 


36 

"Oh,  I  love  it!"  cried  Yolande  — for 
whom,  unlike  her  distraught  companion,  no 
barriers  imprisoned  her  soul  from  pres- 
ent delight  in  nature's  innocent,  profound 
apocalypse.  "  I  could  not  understand  the 
earth,  or  believe  in  it,  but  for  such  times 
as  these,  when  it  seems  as  if  a  breath 
might  blow  it  away,  and  leave  nothing  but 
heaven !" 

"You  seem  very  sure  of  there  being  a 
heaven,"  said  he.  "  Do  you  know  that  some 
people  think  there  is  none?" 

"  No  heaven  ?  There  can  be  nothing  else 
— except  that  very  thought  that  there  is 
none." 

He  brushed  off  the  ash  of  his  cigar  on  the 
marble. 

"I  need  to  feel  the  solid  reality  of  the 
planet,"  he  said. 

"There  can  be  but  one  reality,"  she  an- 
swered, "and  this"  —  she  sent  her  hands 
abroad  with  a  sweeping  gesture,  and  brought 
them  back  till  the  palms  met — "  this  cannot 


37 

be  it.    Think  how  terrible  if  it  were,  in  spite 
of  its  beauty — no,  because  of  it." 

"Yes,  of  course.  .  .  .  Nature  the  illusion 
of  sense  .  .  ."  mumbled  he,  perplexed  to  find 
himself  fingering  the  half -forgotten  meta- 
physics of  distant  college  days.  He  could 
not  get  in  touch  with  the  spontaneous  vision 
of  this  intuitive  soul.  Yolande  was  not  a 
metaphysician,  she  was  a  spirit. 

"  I  love  sunshine,"  she  went  on,  "  but  I 
shall  love  it  with  my  whole  heart  only  in 
heaven.  Here  moonlight  is  best;  it  is  the 
truer  light  for  earth.  The  sun  makes  all  so 
clear  you  can  hardly  remember  it  is  but  an 
image,  after  all;  but  the  moon  gives  you 
back  the  unreality  that  is  the  truth." 

"  After  asking  me  to  stay  with  you,  you 
soar  away  from  me,"  he  said,  after  a  little. 
"  My  dwelling  has  been  in  what  you  call  the 
Unreality — I  could  find  a  harder  name  for  it 
— and  I  have  no  wings  ;  so  these  angelic 
flights  of  yours  make  me  lonely." 

She  turned  slowly,  inclining  her  body  tow- 


38 

ards  him.  Yes,  there  was  a  heaven  indeed, 
and  that  supple  figure  and  moonlit  face  and 
low  voice  were  of  its  sound  and  substance. 

"  Lonely?"  she  repeated,  slowly. 

At  this  moment  a  truth  presented  itself  to 
Strathspey's  mind. 

Time  and  space  as  discipline  are  guides 
to  heaven,  but  misused  become  prompt  and 
plausible  ministers  of  the  devil.  Though  the 
inertia  of  the  body  may  as  well  hinder  as  help 
good  impulses,  and  thus  negatively  protect 
the  soul,  yet  this  otherwise  friendly  associate 
of  ours  owns  a  fatal  power  accorded  to  no 
other  agent  in  any  plane  of  existence  —  the 
power,  namely,  to  effect  desecrations.  Be- 
tween evil  and  holy  in  the  other  world  is 
fixed  a  gulf  impassable;  but  here  an  em- 
bodied hell  may  embrace  an  incarnate  heav- 
en, or  thrust  its  foul  presence  into  the  pene- 
trail  of  the  Lord's  temple.  For  these  crimes 
the  penalty  is  eternal. 

Strathspey  need  but  put  forth  a  hand  to 
touch  and  draw  Yolande  to  him ;  with  his 


39 

bodily  arms  he  might  enfold  her  body ;  but 
inasmuch  as  a  certain  fact  known  to  him  and 
not  to  her  debarred  him  from  marrying  her, 
this  semblance  of  possession  in  time  and 
space  must  be  bought  at  no  less  a  price  than 
separation  in  eternity.  Love  and  immortal- 
ity would  slip  from  his  grasp,  and  only  lust 
and  death  remain  in  it. 

This  high  and  vital  insight  wrought  upon 
its  subject  but  a  transient  effect.  To  have 
been  capable  of  it  attested  spiritual  refine- 
ment ;  but  he  had  so  conducted  his  life  as 
to  straiten  its  loftier  capacities,  and  the  in- 
stincts of  a  lower  range  of  feeling  followed 
hard  upon  the  shining  footprints  of  the  pure 
intuition. 

The  senses  do  not  argue ;  they  wield  a 
power  beyond  logic.  Awakened  and  warmed, 
their  voice  is  but  an  inarticulate  cry  for  fru- 
ition, come  what  may!  Yolande  was  so 
near ;  her  sphere  so  wooed  him ;  the  sweet 
intent  of  her  heart  was  so  contagious ;  and 
the  idea  of  never — never,  for  one  instant ! — 


40 

yielding  to  its  invitation  was  so  intolerable 
that  his  blood  leaped  up  in  mutiny.  Oh,  to 
kiss  her  once — no  more ! 

No  sooner  had  the  conception  of  this  kiss 
entered  into  him  than  he  knew,  in  the  mar- 
row of  his  nature,  that  its  reality  was  at 
hand ;  and  the  flash  of  that  conviction  lit  up 
for  a  moment  the  scenery  of  abrupt  sum- 
mits and  abysses,  amidst  which  his  spirit 
now  walked.  But  he  no  longer  wished  to 
see  his  moral  environment;  it  had  lost  its 
significance  for  him.  He  would  focus  him- 
self upon  Yolande. 

Yet  was  he  obscurely  aware  of  a  moral 
revolution  accomplishing  in  himself,  closing 
the  upward  channels  of  influx,  and  throwing 
wide  those  that  opened  downward.  He  did 
not  regret  it ;  it  left  him  at  his  ease.  Temp- 
tation— the  interior  combat  of  good  against 
evil — tortures  only  while  it  lasts ;  the  issue, 
whichever  side  it  favor,  brings  repose  and 
delight,  since  the  man  is  then  identified  with 
(as  the  case  may  be)  the  angel  or  the  devil. 


Meanwhile  he  was  heedful  to  flatter  the 
susceptibilities  of  his  gentle  nurture  and 
love  of  comely  seeming  by  ignoring  as  yet 
the  more  sinister  biddings  of  his  new  mas- 
ter. To  kiss  her  once — once  in  the  lapse  of 
a  lifetime  to  have  verified  the  reality  of  mu- 
tual passion — was  this  yielding  too  much  to 
the  frailty  of  poor  human  nature  ?  One  sad, 
delicious  kiss  of  love  and  of  farewell  com- 
bined— it  was  little  enough  to  claim.  Nay,  it 
was  a  right  due  himself  and  her,  to  disallow 
which  were  vain  hypocrisy.  From  the  ends 
of  the  earth  they  two  had  met  and  loved ; 
they  must  part — so  be  it ;  but  not  without 
exchanging  a  pledge  which  should  serve  to 
banish  doubt  and  assure  them  of  reunion 
hereafter. 

Enough  of  justification !  the  delight  of 
the  expectant  senses,  rushing  up  from  be- 
low into  his  brain,  inundated  with  its  impa- 
tient flood  the  feeble  barriers  of  conscience. 
But  he  was  not  a  man  of  the  world  for  noth- 
ing ;  he  knew  the  value  of  restraint  in  sensu- 


42 

ality.  An  untried  youth  would  have  sprung 
at  once  to  consummation,  but  Strathspey, 
warily  voluptuous,  would  steal  upon  gratifi- 
cation, missing  not  a  throb  of  the  kindling 
senses,  savoring  every  relish  of  pleasure. 
When  the  culmination  came  it  should  have 
suffered  qualification  in  none  of  the  preced- 
ing stages. 

So  swift  is  the  mind  the  pregnant  inflec- 
tion lent  to  her  last  word  by  Yolande  had 
scarce  ceased  to  vibrate  in  his  ears  before  his 
response  was  determined. 

"  You  can't  understand  loneliness,"  he 
said,  "  because  you've  never  known  what  it 
is  to  feel  that  you  are  all  want,  and  that 
some  other  inaccessible  person  is  all  ful- 
ness. Nor  had  I  till  I  saw  you,  though  I 
had  been  lonely  enough !  But  I  recollect 
in  some  nursery  tale  about  the  man  who 
didn't  believe  in  fairy  -  land,  and  got  on 
very  well  with  his  scepticism  until  he  met  a 
person  who  knew  the  way  there ;  and  she — 
meaning  him  a  kindness — gave  him  just  one 


43 

glimpse  of  the  enchanted  kingdom.  From 
that  day  he  was  a  lost  soul,  wandering  about 
in  blind  and  hopeless  quest  of  a  good  and 
beauty  not  created  for  him,  which  he  had 
better  never  have  ...  No !"  he  broke  off, 
letting  fall  the  threadbare  cloak  of  his  fable 
and  rising  impetuously  to  his  feet,  while  his 
voice  sank  and  grew  husky,  "  I  won't  say 
that.  I  am  better  off  for  having  met  you. 
It's  worth  a  thousand  such  lives  as  mine  to 
have  seen  and  known .  you  as  I  have  to- 
night !" 

She  had  turned  her  face  fairly  towards 
him,  and  remained  with  head  erect  and 
eyes  full  opened,  as  the  Egyptian  lioness 
sits  in  stone.  Now  she  also  rose,  with  a 
slow  and  stately  movement,  and  confronted 
him. 

But  it  was  so  long  before  she  spoke  that 
he  began  to  fear  he  had  miscalculated,  and 
fallen  into  the  crude  error  of  over -confi- 
dence. He  had  expected  a  tremulous  and 
faltering  agitation,  amidst  which  he  would 


44 

move  to  his  goal  as  with  the  self-mistrust- 
ful grace  of  one  protesting  his  unworthiness. 
He  felt  mistrustful  in  good  earnest  now, 
and  bit  his  lip ;  was  it  possible  he  had  made 
himself  ridiculous? 

It  was  Yolande's  greatness  of  soul  he  had 
failed  to  gauge.  Her  silence  was  the  pause 
of  a  reverent  and  noble  nature  on  the  thresh- 
old of  voluntary  and  irrevocable  change. 
Her  princely  heart  harbored  no  doubts  of 
the  man  she  loved.  As  for  his  reference 
to  the  "  inaccessible,"  she  thought  he  meant 
no  more  than  the  old  chivalric  illusion — the 
knight  never  worthy  in  his  own  eyes  of  the 
guerdon  of  his  lady's  favor.  Her  guileless 
honesty  endowed  him  with  scruples  more 
generous  than  he  had  ingenuity  to  frame : 
and  she  sought  so  to  make  the  gift  of  her- 
self to  him  that  the  true  benefactor  should 
seem  to  be  himself. 

At  last  she  said,  "That  enchanted  king- 
dom—  if  you  care  to  be  its  king — "  and 
stopped,  feeling  that  no  parable,  however 


45 

graceful,  was   of   dignity  worthily  to  bear 
her  simple  meaning. 

She  slightly  raised  her  arms,  with  the 
palms  of  her  hands  towards  him,  and  said, 
in  a  voice  like  the  murmur  of  a  distant 

bell, 

"  If  you  care  for  me,  I  am  yours." 


VII 

"  Me  would  the  Dragon  slay — 
Shield,  Spear  flung  I  away ! 
A  Holy  Dove  I  came— 
He  burned  in  his  own  Flame!" 

'HERE  is  a  moment  when  to  the 
pure  in  heart  this  seeming  amor- 
phous and  unwieldy  universe  (sprawling 
yonder  beyond  Arcturus  and  nebular  spi- 
rals, and  here  vanishing  again,  despite  help 
of  lenses,  in  infinite  microscopic  perspec- 
tives) suddenly,  obedient  to  the  omnipo- 
tent vibration  of  an  inspired  heart,  slips 
from  behind  the  rigid  screen  of  the  letter, 
and  appears  transfigured,  a  spirit  divinely 
human,  of  substance  and  form  correspond- 
ent with  angelic  love  and  wisdom,  and  ac- 
knowledging a  true  infinity  in  the  eternal 
instant  of  a  lover's  kiss. 


47 

Into  the  tremulous  passion  of  that  mar- 
riage of  melting  lips  flow  all  tender  mean- 
ings and  potent  harmonies  inhabiting  and 
sustaining  the  exquisite  hypocrisy  of  nature. 
It  solves  the  riddle  of  the  Sphinx,  sunder- 
ing with  its  gossamer  touch  the  adamantine 
bonds  of  time  and  space,  and  irradiating 
with  immortal  human  light  the  alien  ob- 
scurities of  mortality.  All  the  laborious 
languages  of  the  world  and  the  literatures 
which  embody  them  convey  no  significance 
more  vital  than  is  disclosed  in  this  inarticu- 
late greeting  of  sex  to  sex. 

Yolande  felt  herself  taken  and  held ;  dur- 
ing a  breath  or  two  something  apart  from 
her  will  delayed  her  yielding;  she  seemed 
traversing  distances  immeasurable,  weighted 
and  yet  winged  with  awe  and  wonder,  as  at 
passing  from  the  dim  womb  of  dreams  to 
naked,  dazzling,  palpitating  life.  But  she 
was  drawn  onward ;  her  bosom  must  im- 
press its  softness  upon  the  firm  strength  of 
his  body ;  she  saw  his  face  nearer  to  hers 


48 

than  seemed  credible — too  near  to  be  dis- 
cerned, save  as  a  dark,  overshadowing,  in- 
drawing  power.  Her  eyelids  involuntarily 
fell,  that  she  might  behold  the  invisible: 
then  came  the  apocalyptic  touch  !  A  mes- 
sage of  vital  flame,  scarce  known  upon  the 
lips  ere  tingling  couriers  had  borne  it  to  all 
regions  of  her  being,  near  and  far ;  welding 
to  the  male  the  female  fibres  of  her  life, 
and  changing  her  from  maid  to  woman. 
She  felt  the  masculine  more  intimately  hers 
than  aught  of  her  own  had  ever  been ;  and 
saw,  in  instantaneous  vision,  her  very  self  in 
him.  The  creative  mystery,  simple  as  sub- 
lime, was  unveiled  to  her  illuminated  soul, 
and  showed  her,  in  human  marriage,  but  re- 
union of  the  parts  of  a  divinely  planned 
antecedent  whole. 

Meanwhile  the  agent  of  her  spiritual  in- 
crease was,  for  his  own  part,  already  entering 
the  shadows  of  torment. 

At  that  moment  of  the  embrace  the  per- 
fume of  the  orange-blossom,  idly  plucked  in 


49 

the  garden  while  he  was  still  a  man,  had 
stolen  to  his  nostrils,  and  summoned  from 
the  past  a  scene  in  which  the  original  of  the 
cloud-sculptured  countenance  had  borne  a 
part  with  him.  His  heart  rose  in  hate 
against  it,  but  was  powerless  to  dissipate  the 
image  of  that  smiling  malice  ;  it  moulded 
itself  as  a  mask  over  the  pure  features  of 
Yolande,  and  its  curling  lips  seemed  even 
to  intercept  the  kiss  for  the  sake  of  which 
he  was  abdicating  honor.  It  turned  to  bit- 
terness and  confusion  the  sensual  ecstasies 
for  which  he  had  bargained,  yet  forced  him 
to  feign  enthusiasm,  lest  this  new-crowned 
young  queen  of  love  suspect  his  fealty.  He 
had  marred  his  delight  and  lost  her,  for  she 
was  rapt  out  of  his  reach  by  that  very  joy 
which  transfigured  her  in  conjoining  her  to 
the  lover  whom  she  deemed  him  to  be.  In 
the  Paradise  whose  gates  he  had  opened  to 
her  he  himself  could  have  no  share:  those 
gates  had  closed  upon  her,  and  his  way  was 
barred  by  the  flaming  swords  of  the  cher- 


5Q 

ubim.  Yet  must  he  play  out  the  role,  and 
profess  to  pace  by  her  side  along  the  thymy 
paths,  while  in  truth  he  was  gnashing  his 
teeth  unknown  and  unpitied  in  the  outer 
darkness. 

But  this  was  intolerable.  If  there  were  no 
means  of  getting  where  she  was,  might  he 
not  nevertheless  draw  her  back  to  himself? 
She  was  but  human,  after  all ! 

As  this  question  insinuated  itself  within 
him,  the  answer,  like  a  serpent,  wriggled 
across  his  mind,  and  was  hidden  again  in 
obscurity  of  its  own  engendering.  But  he 
did  not  miss  the  hint  of  the  crawling  base- 
ness. The  snake  which  had  dragged  down 
stainless  Eve  from  her  high  estate  lurked  in 
Eden  still,  ever  alert  to  repeat  the  eternal 
infamy.  Yolande  loved  and  trusted  him : 
her  trust  could  be  betrayed,  her  love  cor- 
rupted, and  she  herself  —  or  what  was  left 
of  her — become  the  testimony  of  his  tri- 
umph. 

When  a  man  voluntarily  cuts  loose  from 


good  he  plunges  into  hell  headforemost. 
The  higher  degrees  of  his  nature  are  the  first 
to  be  depraved.  But  his  evil  harmony  with 
himself  endows  him  with  a  temporary  power. 
Strathspey's  eyes  brightened ;  his  faltering 
nerves  were  restrung ;  he  met  Yolande's  gaze 
firmly,  and  scrupled  not  to  peer  deep  into 
that  shadowy  translucence.  It  was  pretty  to 
prattle  of  angels;  but  here  in  his  arms,  her 
pliant  body  undulating  in  touch  with  his, 
was  a  breathing  feminine  temptation,  whose 
fragrant  lips  of  flesh  and  humid,  gleaming 
eyes  called  for  anything  but  abstractions  and 
moralities.  It  was  well  to  set  bounds  before- 
hand ;  but  human  nature,  once  aroused,  takes 
things  into  its  own  hands,  and  carries  them  to 
their  natural  consummation.  He  had  thought 
to  end  with  a  kiss;  perhaps  he  might;  he 
had  at  any  rate  begun  with  one. 

What  man,  fairly  tempted,  had  ever  final- 
ly prevailed  against  temptation?  The  temp- 
tation might  be  inadequate,  the  subject  lack 
virile  integrity,  or  opportunity  fail ;  but  to 


52 

be  tempted  was  to  yield,  since  only  those 
ripe  to  succumb  were  open  to  the  lure. 

Thus  reassured,  Strathspey,  his  lips  against 
hers,  muttered  through  his  teeth,  "  My  dar- 
ling !  can  it  be  true?  You  love  me  !" 

The  words,  despite  their  good  intrinsic 
quality,  rang  false  in  his  own  ears:  it  being 
the  misfortune  of  the  sensual  counterpart 
of  love  to  vulgarize  whatsoever  it  touches. 
True  love,  forever  unprecedented,  imparts 
its  freshness  to  its  instruments,  and  the  dull- 
est commonplace  in  word  or  act  comes  from 
it  crowned  with  rarity:  for  the  source  is  di- 
vine and  infinite.  But  the  other  passion, 
emanating  from  the  corporeal  degree  of  self- 
hood, inevitably  repeats  its  one  base  note 
in  every  deliverance,  and  infects  with  its  es- 
sential staleness  the  most  noble  phrase  or 
gesture.  It  cannot  be  helped ;  the  fruit  of 
profanations,  if  sweet  on  the  tongue,  is  bitter 
in  the  belly,  and  fatal  withal  to  life.  Its 
votaries  have  their  reward. 

But  if  that  old  serpent  still  crawls  in  Eden, 


53 

the  Divine  Humanity,  in  these  days,  also 
abides  there ;  and  the  pure-hearted  are  envi- 
roned with  its  sphere,  the  effect  whereof  is  ei- 
ther to  avert  evil  communications  or  to  trans- 
form them  into  good.  Yolande  perceived 
nothing  of  the  harm  which  threatened  her. 

With  a  gesture  modest  as  impassioned 
she  laid  her  sweet  palms  upon  his  face  and 
pushed  him  away  from  her. 

11  Let  me  go — I  want  to  think !"  she  said, 
breathless  and  rosy,  a  smile  shining  through 
tear-drops  in  her  eyes.  "Oh,  you  have 
kissed  me,  sir!  —  No:  we  must  be  apart  a 
little." 

"  We've  been  too  much  apart  already : 
come!" 

But  she  drew  back  a  step,  breathing  deep, 
and  looking  at  him  with  a  tender  wonder.  He 
could  not  follow  her  moods ;  but  this  seemed 
like  coquetry.  The  male  brutality  latent  in 
him  began  to  bristle  through  the  suavity  of 
training. 

"  Yolande  !M 


54 

She  kissed  her  white  hand  to  him  and 
courtesied.  "  Mr.  Strathspey !" 

"Are  you  laughing  at  me?  Don't  call  me 
that !"  he  exclaimed,  roughly,  angrily  con- 
scious of  being  worsted  in  this  encounter. 

She  seemed  scarcely  to  hear  him.  She 
turned  from  him,  and  looked  out  across  the 
valley,  fetching  a  long,  delectable  sigh,  and 
lifting  her  white  chin,  while  her  fingers  wan- 
dered over  the  delicate  hair  at  her  temples. 

"  Let  me  think !"  she  repeated,  in  an  inward 
voice.  "  We  must  be  in  order  now — like  the 
other  angels !  Oh,  what  a  plunge — from  time 
to  eternity!  Is  the  world  where  we  left  it?" 
She  glanced  upward.  "  There  is  the  moon !" 

The  moon  !  Strathspey  frowned  and  red- 
dened; he  was  letting  himself  be  made  ab- 
surd. This  delicious  incoherence  of  Yolande 
— the  bewilderment  of  a  soul  apotheosized 
at  the  amazing  accost  of  love — appeared  to 
his  debased  intelligence  as  nothing  more 
than  coquettish  affectation.  He  would  put 
an  end  to  it! 


55 

He  stepped  forward,  caught  her  hand,  and 
kissed  it  violently.  Contrary  to  his  expec- 
tation, she  did  not  resist,  but  permitted  him 
his  will  with  it. 

"Listen  to  me,  sweet!"  he  said,  with  a 
clumsy  utterance.  "Your  people  may  be 
back  here  any  moment.  What's  the  good  of 
acting  like  this  ?  We  are  wasting  our  oppor- 
tunity—" 

At  that  point  his  unchained  eyes,  roving 
here  and  there,  were  arrested  by  hers,  in 
which  was  dawning  a  mysterious,  inner 
smile.  This  so  disconcerted  him  that  he 
dropped  her  hand  and  flung  himself  upon 
the  bench.  He  planted  his  elbows  on  his 
knees,  gripped  his  hands  together,  and  bent 
down  his  head. 

"  Do  you  play  with  a  man  who  loves 
you  ?"  he  growled. 

She  made  no  answer,  but  he  felt  her  seat 
herself  beside  him,  so  close  that  the  white 
film  of  her  skirt  drifted  over  his  thigh.  She 
leaned  nearer  yet,  but  he  did  not  move  un- 


56 

til  her  silence  constrained  him  sullenly  to 
turn  towards  her. 

A  murmur  of  laughter,  low  and  sweet, 
came  brook-like  from  her  throat  and  broke 
in  aerial  waves  over  his  heated  senses.  The 
serpent  in  him,  striving  to  hold  its  own, 
writhed  outrageously  for  an  instant ;  but 
its  infernal  life  was  quelled  by  Yolande's 
look  of  clear  light  and  living  fire,  and  it 
subsided  out  of  sight.  Strathspey,  who  had 
identified  its  evil  being  with  his  own,  was 
by  its  defection  left  wellnigh  exanimate: 
he  sat,  dulled  and  cold,  all  vigor  gone  out 
of  him. 

But  through  his  stupidness  penetrated  the 
bell-like  music  of  Yolande's  voice,  in  which 
passion  and  innocence  chimed  as  one.  The 
ripple  of  tender  mirth  was  gone,  leaving  a 
tremulous  solemnity. 

"You  make  me  think  that  I  know  love 
better  than  you.  I  gave  myself  to  you, 
and — you  took  me !"  She  paused,  breathing 
more  quickly.  "You  made  me  see  and 


57 

feel — "  Her  voice  failed ;  she  covered  her 
eyes  with  her  hands,  presently  adding,  in  a 
deep  whisper,  "  I  cannot  say  it !" 

A  huge  moth,  black  as  night,  appeared 
and  hovered  before  one  of  the  trumpet- 
blossoms  of  the  white  stephanotis  that 
clambered  up  a  pillar  of  the  veranda.  So 
noiseless  was  the  whir  of  its  dusky  wings  it 
seemed  a  phantom.  After  peering  awhile 
into  the  depths  of  the  flower  it  suddenly 
vanished,  as  if  annihilated  where  it  hung. 

"  God  gave  us  this/'  Yolande  went  on, 
folding  her  hands  and  drawing  them  in 
upon  her  bosom.  "  He  sent  us  to  each 
other  —  not  for  an  hour,  or  for  a  lifetime, 
but  forever  —  to  love  each  other  forever! 
Opportunity !" 

Strathspey  flinched  inwardly  at  the  ac- 
cent of  divine  scorn  which  she  threw  into 
that  word.  But  the  unconscious  irony  of 
her  entire  view  of  their  relation  suffocated 
him.  He  said,  with  difficulty,  "  Have  some 
mercy  for  flesh  and  blood !" 


58 

Her  hand  went  forth  with  a  princely 
movement  and  rested  upon  his.  What  vital 
warmth  was  in  her  touch ! 

"  Since  I  am  yours,  so  is  my  body  with 
me,"  she  said.  "  You  are  to  love  it  for  my 
sake.  And  I  so  love  yours"  —  her  fingers 
involuntarily  tightened  their  grasp  —  "that 
I  almost  fear  to  forget  that  it  is  only  the 
servant  of  my  lover  —  his  messenger:  to 
forget  Arthur  for  Lancelot !" 

The  clear  serenity  of  her  speech  was 
checked  by  an  incoming  tide  of  troubled 
thought.  Some  repugnant  agitation  wrought 
and  grew  within  her.  All  at  once  she  rose 
to  her  feet,  panting  and  pale. 

"  Don't  let  it  come  between  us !"  she  ex- 
claimed in  a  changed  voice,  which  rose  and 
fell  turbulently.  "  Unless  we  hold  to  our 
highest  we  shall  lose  each  other !  We  would 
better  die  now  than  bury  ourselves  alive  in 
that  dungeon  !  .  .  .  Oh,  never  honor  this 
clumsy,  lying  image  of  me  more  than  me ! 
I  could  never  forgive  you  !  I  am  jealous  of 


59 

its  lips  and  arms !  If  they  should  steal  you 
from  me — or  yours  rob  me  of  you  .  .  ." 

The  ominous  intonation  of  her  voice,  as 
of  a  sibyl's  denouncing  judgment,  abruptly 
stopped,  as  though  its  limit  of  faculty  were 
reached.  She  was  standing  erect  as  a  Greek 
pillar,  her  hands  clinched  by  her  sides,  and 
all  the  storm  of  her  emotion  glooming  and 
lightening  in  her  eyes.  Strathspey,  who  was 
also  on  his  feet,  stared  and  blinked  before 
her.  She  was  herself  the  cherub  with  the 
flaming  sword ! 

She  moved  towards  him.  His  nerves  con- 
tracted, as  at  the  threat  of  a  thunderbolt ; 
the  flash  of  that  mystic  sword  seemed  poised 
against  his  actual  life.  Her  face  seemed  like 
that  of  a  spirit  disincarnate,  owning  no  kin- 
dred with  mortality.  She  gazed  into  him 
and  said,  in  a  slow,  fierce  whisper, 

"  I  could  be  terrible  !" 

And  then,  ere  he  could  catch  his  breath, 
came  another  change,  sudden  and  over- 
whelming. Her  arms  were  about  his  neck, 


6o 

her  cheek  against  his,  he  felt  the  beating  of 
her  heart,  and  heard  her  voice  thrilling  in 
his  ear,  "  I  love  you — oh,  how  I  love  you  !" 

She  was  incarnate  once  more :  body  and 
soul  she  was  his.  What  he  had  desired  had 
come  to  pass.  But  he  could  no  more  avail 
himself  of  her  self-surrender  than  dead  time 
can  absorb  living  eternity.  He  was  as  a 
heap  of  embers  whose  smoky  flicker  has 
been  dazzled  out  of  existence  by  the  noon- 
day sun.  She  was  burning  and  throbbing 
in  his  arms,  but  his  dry  lips  could  scarce  re- 
turn her  ambrosial  kiss.  Because  he  had 
coveted  her  unchastely  the  heavenly  gift  of 
chaste  enjoyment  was  gone. 

But  through  this  impassivity  of  sense 
an  obligation  began  to  define  itself,  which 
brought  with  it  a  minor  life  of  its  own. 
Yolande  had  entered  upon  the  delight  of 
her  kingdom :  whatever  atom  of  true  man- 
hood remained  in  him  should  be  devoted 
to  maintaining  to  the  last  her  faith  in  its  in- 
tegrity. It  was  his  duty  to  enact,  with  what 


6i 

animation  and  illusion  he  might,  the  charac- 
ter of  the  lover  competent  to  such  a  love  as 
hers  —  high-minded,  reverent,  ardent,  pure. 
For  this  passing  hour  he  must  shield  her 
from  any  shadow  or  chill  of  disappointment 
or  misgiving.  So  much  was  clear.  But  how 
of  the  time  to  come  ?  If  to-morrow  she  de- 
tected his  unreality,  what  would  it  profit  her 
to  have  believed  in  him  to-day  ? 

"I  must  disappear,"  he  said  to  himself. 
"  She  must  believe  I'm  dead.  She  can  stand 
that  better  than  finding  me  out.  Her  faith 
in  immortality  will  console  her  with  the  idea 
that  we  shall  meet  hereafter.  And  I  sup- 
pose the  resources  of  the  Celestial  City  can 
provide  for  her,  when  she  goes  there,  some 
fellow  such  as  she  fancies  I  am  !" 

And  so — perhaps  with  a  pang  of  transcen- 
dental jealousy  of  his  angelic  rival — Strath- 
spey addressed  himself  to  carry  out  the  least 
unworthy  of  the  several  impulses  which  had 
moved  him  since  he  alighted  at  Yolande's 
door. 


VIII 

"In  Fire  sought,  I  hide  in  Snow; 

Lost  in  Delight,  am  found  in  Pain  ; 
Present,  I  fade  ;  but  wise  men  know 
O'er  Leagues  and  Years  I  bloom  amain !" 

* 

fUT  he  soon  saw  that  his  scheme  of  a 
pretended  death  would  not  serve 
his  purpose. 

The  world  nowadays  is  not  large  enough 
to  play  hide-and-seek  in — the  light  of  pub- 
licity spoils  the  game.  Where  could  Strath- 
spey go  that  Yolande  might  not  find  him  ? 
how  furnish  convincing  proof  of  his  decease? 
A  dead  body  is  convincing ! 

Something  must  be  done.  For  here  was 
Yolande  coming  to  her  own  —  the  woman 
new -created  entering  on  the  life  she  was 
made  for — the  young  queen  of  love  ascend- 
ing her  throne — and  it  was  all  a  deception, 


63 

her  kingdom  an  hallucination,  and  the  ex- 
haustless  spring  of  passion  in  her  must  waste 
itself  upon  a  void.  This  was  a  tragedy  to 
touch  the  most  indifferent.  There  was  but 
one  way  to  mitigate  it,  and  that  was  by  dint 
of  another  tragedy  whose  dramatis  persona 
should  be  himself.  In  plain  terms,  in  order 
to  keep  her  faith  in  his  honor,  he  must  kill 
himself. 

"  That  sounds  rather  extravagant,  though," 
he  said  to  himself. 

But  the  more  he  looked  at  the  idea  the 
better  he  was  pleased  with  it.  The  truth 
was,  he  was  in  the  temper  for  suicide,  and 
therefore  prone  to  accept  a  pretext.  It 
seemed  to  him  that  a  man  prepared  to  die 
for  the  sake  of  upholding  a  girl's  ideal  was 
entitled  to  some  respect.  His  manhood  re- 
asserted itself.  He  felt  able  to  look  her  in 
the  face  without  shrinking.  The  shadow  of 
death  purified  and  strengthened  him.  He 
suddenly  felt  cheerful,  and  able  to  play  the 
light-hearted  lover. 


64 

They  were  now  pacing  up  and  down  the 
stone  pavement  of  the  veranda.  Yolande's 
step  was  buoyant,  and  as  they  walked  arm- 
in-arm,  she  ever  and  anon  turned  and  kissed 
his  shoulder.  They  moved  as  one,  but  their 
thoughts  were  as  disparted  as  zenith  from 
nadir. 

"  I  didn't  know  how  to  manage  so  much 
joy  at  first,"  remarked  Yolande.  "  I  was 
caught  up  to  heaven,  and  couldn't  find  my 
way  back.  I  wanted  to  give  you  more  than 
can  be  given — on  earth  at  least.  Our  bodies 
frightened  me;  but  now  I  thank  God  for 
them.  They  will  teach  how  to  love — all  the 
ways  and  wisdom  of  it.  By  trying  to  make 
ourselves  one  flesh  here  we  shall  learn  how 
to  be  one  angel  afterwards !" 

"  Don't  you  think  you'll  ever  get  tired  of 
me,  Yolande  ?" 

"  Tired  of  you !  If  eternity  were  a  mo- 
ment shorter  than  it  is  I  should  die  of  thirst 
and  hunger  for  you,  beloved  !  —  Stop  !" 
They  paused,  and  she  lifted  up  her  face  to 


65 

him.  "  I  want  you  to  kiss  me — a  slow  kiss. 
Now  I  will  tell  you  down  into  your  heart 
I  love  you — love  you — forever !  Ah  !  did 
your  heart  hear  it?" 

She  drew  back  her  mouth  from  his,  and 
they  looked  at  each  other. 

No ;  assuredly  the  world  was  not  large 
enough  to  hold  him  and  her  apart  from  each 
other ;  it  must  be  death. 

They  resumed  their  walk.  She  tossed  her 
head,  and  threw  a  kiss  from  her  finger-tips  to 
the  stars. 

"  Do  you  think  me  beautiful?" 

"  All  the  good  and  beauty  of  the  world 
are  promises  which  you  have  fulfilled." 

She  breathed  this  in,  and  grew  yet  love- 
lier. 

"  That  proves  I  belong  to  you.  The  more 
and  the  longer  I  am  yours  the  more  beau- 
tiful shall  I  become.  For  my  beauty  is 
made  by  your  seeing  it,  and  your  eyes  were 
made  to  see  it,  and  no  other.  Ah,  beloved, 
I  pray  I  may  fulfil  for  you  the  promises 


66 

of  the  world.  But  see,  how  beautiful  they 
are !" 

Indeed,  the  night  was  exquisite  almost 
beyond  the  reach  of  sense  to  apprehend  it. 
On  the  south  the  sky-line  was  fringed  by  the 
feathered  fronds  of  a  row  of  palms;  their 
surfaces  faintly  glistened  in  the  moonbeams, 
and  they  gave  forth  in  the  breeze  a  delicate 
hissing  sound,  like  pattering  raindrops.  The 
moon  was  a  goddess  effulgent,  wellnigh  too 
fair  for  mortal  gaze ;  she  had  dissolved  both 
upper  and  lower  clouds,  yet  but  few  stars 
were  strong  enough  to  penetrate  the  mantle 
of  her  light ;  the  largest  of  them  rested  just 
on  the  peak  of  one  of  the  northeastern 
mountains,  and  might  have  been  mistaken 
for  an  earthly  fire ;  but  as  our  dark  planet 
rolled  towards  the  east  the  mountain  sank 
and  left  the  bright  star  ascendant. 

The  firmament  itself  was  dark  and  yet 
luminous — warp  and  woof  of  a  myriad  de- 
licious hues.  Threads  of  purple  and  azure 
were  interwoven  with  gold  and  crimson, 


67 

depth  beyond  depth,  splendor  within  splen- 
dor, subdued  into  a  lucid  harmony  of  shadow. 
But  ah,  that  marvellous  crescent !  not  white, 
nor  yet  golden,  but  the  ineffable  counterpart 
of  the  dark;  her  glory  was  as  that  of  im- 
mortal eyes,  kindled  by  such  passion  as  im- 
mortals feel — a  dissolving  brightness,  a  lustre 
of  celestial  wisdom  inspired  by  celestial  love. 
She  was  not  aloof  from  the  beholder,  but 
blended  herself  with  his  soul,  identifying 
herself  with  his  emotion,  and  illuminating 
his  thought.  To  the  inner  sense  that  abyss 
of  frozen  and  lifeless  space  that  parted  her 
sphere  from  ours  had  no  reality.  She  lived 
within  the  heart ;  she  was  the  language  of 
the  night — the  key  that  unlocked  its  mean- 
ings and  uplifted  them  to  harmony. 

There  were  silent  motions  and  elfin  sounds 
in  the  air  round  about.  A  great  white  owl 
feathered  its  soft  flight  over  the  tree-tops, 
passing  fleetly  from  visibility  to  invisibility; 
and  the  tender,  greenish  sparkle  of  countless 
fireflies  throbbed  far  and  near,  lanterns  of 


68 

frolic  fairies.  Insects  and  tree-toads  chirped 
and  sang  unseen,  maintaining  an  interior 
palpitation  of  sound  that  was  so  multitu- 
dinous as  to  seem  rhythmical;  and  ever  and 
anon,  distinct  above  the  diapason,  yet  unit- 
ing with  it,  came  the  croak  of  a  gecko,  crawl- 
ing concealed  near  by,  and  answered  by  an- 
other at  a  distance.  All  the  minute  life  of 
the  earth  was  vocal  and  active,  but  man  and 
the  larger  animals  were  still. 

"  So  the  world  has  been  from  the  begin- 
ning, and  so  it  will  always  be,"  said  Yolande. 
"But  my  face  will  become  old  and  wrin- 
kled, and  this  body  of  mine  bent  and  infirm. 
For  we  shall  live  many,  many  years  together 
on  earth — shall  we  not,  my  beloved  ? — for  we 
are  both  of  us  full  of  strength  and  health." 

He  drew  a  long  breath.  "  You  ought  to 
outlive  me ;  you  are  scarce  twenty,  and  I  am 
thirty-seven." 

Three  days  was  the  limit  he  had  given 
himself  to  settle  his  affairs  and  step  out  of 
this  life. 


69 

"  No ;  how  could  I  live  after  you  had  left 
me  ?  God  gives  us  our  life  every  moment ; 
but  when  a  man  and  woman  have  been  made 
one  she  must  receive  her  life  through  his. 
No,  I  shall  go  first ;  then  you  will  not 
have  the  sorrow  of  dying  and  leaving  me 
alone." 

Strathspey  laughed  a  little.  "  Barring  ac- 
cidents, then,  let  us  leave  it  so."  He  saw,  in 
his  mind,  high  above  the  mountain  river  that 
flowed  between  his  house  and  hers,  a  bridge, 
narrow,  with  a  low  parapet.  Just  beyond 
the  road  made  a  sudden  turn.  A  horseman, 
galloping  down  the  declivity,  and  forgetting 
what  lay  on  the  other  side  of  the  turn,  would 
go  headlong  over  into  the  gulf. 

His  hand  lay  .upon  the  marble  railing. 
Yolande  leaned  forward  and  rested  her 
smooth  cheek  upon  it.  They  had  resumed 
their  bench. 

"  I  shall  be  glad  of  that  ugly  mask  of  old 
age,"  she  said,  "  put  on  us  just  when  experi- 
ence has  confirmed  our  faith  that  only  im- 


mortal  love  and  beauty  can  be  real.  Instead 
of  hindering,  it  will  help  us  see  each  other 
as  we  are.  And  we  shall  get  so  used  to  dis- 
regarding what  only  seems,  that  when  our 
eyes  open  in  Paradise  we  shall  say  to  each 
other,  '  You  have  not  changed !' ' 

"  Suppose  I  were  to  go  first,  Yolande,  do 
you  think  you  would  know  if  my  spirit  came 
to  you  and  said,  '  It  is  all  right :  I  am  alive, 
and  I  love  you  ?'  " 

"  How  could  I  help  knowing  ?"  she  re- 
turned, gravely. 

He  stooped,  and  kissed  the  tender,  white 
region  underneath  her  ear.  She  sighed  with 
pleasure. 

"  How  infinite  happiness  is !"  she  mur- 
mured. "How  can  I  hold  so  much?  And 
yet  to-morrow  I  shall  be  happier,  and  hap- 
pier still  the  next  day,  and  so  on  forever. 
My  beloved,  there  are  people  who  are  sick, 
or  starving,  or  miserable  in  some  way  —  hus- 
bands and  wives  who  do  not  love  one  an- 
other. You  might  almost  think  unhappiness 


too  was  infinite.  If  we  could  only  comfort 
them  !" 

"  We  must  first  become  better  acquainted 
with  our  own  happiness,"  replied  Strathspey. 

That  rider  had  plunged  thirty  feet  down 
to  the  rocky  bed  of  the  torrent.  Upon  con- 
sideration, however,  he  had  first  dismount- 
ed. There  was  no  reason  for  making  the 
innocent  animal  an  accomplice,  and  Strath- 
spey was  very  fond  of  his  horse.  It  would 
be  thought  he  had  been  thrown. 

"  Yes,  you  are  right,"  said  Yolande,  look- 
ing up  with  a  smile.  "  I  don't  know  myself 
yet — my  new  self."  She  suddenly  added, 
"  You  must  introduce  me  to  her — your  wife 
— to  Mrs.  Strathspey." 

He  stared  at  her,  the  blood  thundering 
in  his  heart,  his  lungs  empty  of  air.  She 
seemed  to  darken  and  quiver  out  of  sight : 
in  her  place  emerged  that  fair  phantom  of 
mocking  malice ;  ...  it  withdrew,  as  volun- 
tary thought  and  comprehension  returned 
to  him.  There  sat  Yolande,  perplexed  and  a 


72 

little  troubled,  peering  through  the  shadow 
that  was  mercifully  on  his  face. 

She  put  her  hand  on  her  bosom.  "  Some- 
thing—  something  cold  went  through  me 
here!"  she  said.  "Did  you  feel  it  too?" 

He  nodded — speak  he  could  not. 

She  shivered  and  then  laughed.  "  We 
already  feel  each  other's  feelings — soon,  per- 
haps, we  shall  think  each  other's  thoughts. 
Look  in  my  eyes  and  see !" 

But  he  bent  his  face  down.  After  a  mo- 
ment he  felt  her  soft  fingers  pass  caressing- 
ly through  his  hair. 

"  What  is  it,  beloved  ?"  she  asked. 

The  touch  and  quiet  voice  restored  him. 

"  I'm  not  fit  to  read  your  soul  nor  to 
have  you  read  mine,"  he  said,  speaking 
huskily  from  a  dry  throat.  "  I  wish  I  could 
shut  a  door  between  to-night  and  all  I've 
been  or  done  before — " 

He  checked  himself,  fearing,  to  have  said 
too  much ;  but  Yolande,  in  her  proud  hu- 
mility, was  above  suspicions. 


73 

"  Yes,  you're  wiser  than  I,"  she  said.  "A 
rose  doesn't  look  back  to  when  it  was  a  bud; 
and  God  will  take  care  of  me  to-morrow — 
to-night  is  enough  for  us.  But  to  be  your 
wife — you  must  help  me  realize  that !  And 
you  might  begin  by  asking  me  to  marry 
you,  sir.  Do  you  know  you  haven't  done 
that  yet  ?" 

He  made  an  attempt  to  echo  her  playful 
tone. 

"  I'm  not  in  a  ceremonious  enough  vein 
to-night.  At  our  next  meeting  I'll  submit 
the  proposition  with  all  the  honors." 

The  body  had  been  swept  down  through 
the  wild  falls  and  eddies  of  the  river,  and 
cast  up  on  a  little  bank  of  sand  below  the 
bridge.  A  group  of  persons  were  looking 
at  it. 

"And  then,"  she  went  on,  "you  must  let 
me  know  your  first  name,  too.  You  were 
angry  with  me  a  little  while  ago  because  I 
called  you  '  Mr.  Strathspey.'  But  what  else 
could  I  ?— look  at  this." 


74 

She  pulled  at  a  silken  cord  round  her 
neck  and  drew  from  its  hiding-place  in  her 
bosom  a  man's  visiting-card  bearing  the 
legend  "  Mr.  A.  H.  Strathspey." 

"  There,  you  see — "  she  began  ;  but  her 
voice  faltered  and  a  blush  spread  over  her 
face  and  neck.  "  I  never  thought  I  should 
show  you  that." 

Tears  came  to  Strathspey's  eyes  at  this 
revelation.  It  seemed  to  bind  them  together 
as  nothing  else  had  done.  She  had  loved 
him  from  the  beginning,  in  the  sacredness  of 
her  maiden  privacy,  before  knowing  whether 
he  loved  her.  His  heart  melted  within  him 
for  tenderness  and  humility. 

"  God  bless  you,  Yolande !"  said  he.  "  Will 
you  let  me  keep  this  now?  It  is — it — will 
do  me  more  good  than  you  can  imag- 
ine." 

She  slipped  the  silken  cord  over  her  head, 
kissed  the  card,  and  then  passed  the  loop 
round  her  lover's  neck.  With  her  arms  on 
his  shoulders  and  her  mouth  at  his  ear  she 


75 

whispered,  "  There's  only  one  thing  in  the 
world  I  would  exchange  for  it — and  that  is 
— you  !  So  now  you  are  my  own  !" 

"  I  am  your  knight ;  this  is  your  favor 
which  I  wear  in  my  fight  with  the  dragon. 
If  he  were  Death  himself  I  shouldn't  be 
afraid  of  him  now.  If  he  gets  the  better  of 
me,  bury  me  with  this  on  my  heart."  He 
looked  at  her  with  sparkling  eyes. 

She  shook  her  head  and  pressed  her  arms 
against  her  sides  with  a  tremor. 

"  Don't  jest  about  death,  beloved ;  it  has 
its  dark  side,  after  all,  though  till  now  I  nev- 
er felt  it.  But  every  moment  and  every  way 
of  you  are  so  dear  to  me  that  I  fear  any 
change.  You  didn't  tell  me  your  name  ; 
what  does  'A.  H. '  stand  for?" 

"Angus — Angus  Hugh;  there's  no  secret 
about  it.  But  I  want  you  to  call  me  only 
by  the  name  you  gave  me  to-night ;  no  one 
else  has  ever  called  me  that.  Call  me  only 
'Beloved.'" 

"  Oh,  but  I  can  call  you  both  !     And  those 


76 

are  lovely  names  ;  they  fit  into  my  heart  and 
mouth.  Listen,  Ang — " 

"  Don't — don't !"  he  said,  muffling  her  lips 
with  his.  "  Any  one  can  call  me  by  those 
names,  and  I  have  heard  them  from  people 
I  hate  and  that  hate  me.  Don't  put  your- 
self with  them  !" 

Yolande  smiled  in  scorn. 

"  As  if  any  one  who  knew  you  could  hate 
you !  Besides,  I  would  make  you  forget  all 
the  others  and  remember  only  me.  Well, 
since  you're  so  foolish,  it  shall  be  as  you 
wish  ;  but  only  for  to-night !  to-morrow — " 

"  By-the-way,"  he  interrupted,  with  an  air 
of  recollecting  himself,  "  to  -morrow  —  for 
the  next  two  days,  in  fact — I  sha'n't  be  able 
to  come  here.  There  are  some  affairs  I  have 
to  attend  to  at  once.  After  that  I  shall  be 
free." 

Yolande's  dark  eyes  dilated,  and  the  cor- 
ners of  her  mouth  drooped.  "  To  -mor- 
row—  two  days!"  she  repeated,  in  an  al- 
most inaudible  voice.  "Three  days  —  for 


77 

you  won't  come    till    the    third    afternoon. 
Oh,  I  can't—" 

"  After  that  I  shall  be  free,"  he  said  again. 

There  was  a  silence.  Yolande  looked  away 
towards  the  mountains. 

"This  is  Tuesday.  Wednesday  —  Thurs- 
day—  at  what  time  on  Friday  will  you 
come?" 

Strathspey  hesitated.  An  idea  struck 
him.  Could  a  disembodied  soul  appear  to 
one  in  the  flesh  ?  In  time  past  he  had  half 
believed  so.  She  had  said  that  she  would 
know  if  his  spirit  visited  her.  They  loved 
each  other,  and  love  brings  spirits  together. 

"  On  Friday,  before  sunset,"  he  said  at 
last,  "  I  will  be  with  you." 

It  was  a  weird  promise,  and  a  chill  trickled 
through  his  nerves  and  about  the  roots  of 
his  hair  as  he  gave  it.  But  he  meant  to 
keep  the  appointment. 

"  Now,  if  you  don't  come  —  "  she  began, 
threateningly.  She  did  not  finish  her  sen- 
tence. A  plan  to  surprise  him  had  suddenly 


78 

occurred  to  her.  She  smiled,  and  nodded 
mysteriously. 

Meanwhile  Strathspey  had  been  continu- 
ing his  speculations.  His  brows  expanded 
and  his  heart  beat  stronger. 

If  love  brought  spirits  together  —  if  he 
could  consciously  approach  Yolande  after 
death — then  why  might  not  their  conjunc- 
tion become  permanent?  The  philosophy 
of  such  matters  was  beyond  him,  but  the 
inference  seemed  logical.  The  veil  between 
the  two  states  of  being  might  often  be  drawn ; 
but  what  of  that,  if  they  could  be  assured  of 
the  reality  of  their  intercourse  ?  And  there 
would  be  no  bar  to  their  union,  since  his 
death  would  have  removed  it.  The  concep- 
tion affected  him  like  the  rising  of  the  sun 
at  midnight. 

He  cast  a  glance  back  over  the  develop- 
ment of  his  relation  with  Yolande.  At  first 
idly  attracted  by  her  beauty,  he  had  been 
gradually  won  by  glimpses  of  the  depth  and 
rarity  of  her  nature,  but,  knowing  the  hidden 


79 

helplessness  of  his  position,  he  had  put  away 
the  thought  of  love.  To-night,  caught  un- 
awares by  passion,  he  had  arrived  at  the 
pass  whence  only  a  treacherous  crime  or  the 
escape  of  death  could  rescue  him.  Each  of 
these  had  seemed  to  imply  separation  from 
Yolande.  But  now  he  saw  in  the  latter  a 
possible  tie  more  intimate  than  he  could 
otherwise  hope  to  compass. 

Doubtless,  in  his  passion  and  ignorance, 
he  was  counting  on  a  possibility  which  a  far 
profounder  and  cooler  man  might  have  re- 
jected. But  Providence  willingly  adapts  it- 
self to  human  error,  and  makes  it  the  parent 
of  good.  A  mistaken  hope  may  set  us  on  an 
upward  path  that  had  else  been  missed,  and 
each  effort  supplies  strength  for  the  next. 

"  I  will  come,  and  never  after  leave  you," 
Strathspey  repeated.  "  I  shall  be  free." 

They  stood  up  and  faced  each  other.  It 
was  best  to  go  now  while  the  glow  of  faith 
was  still  vigorous. 

"  It   would   be  buying  even  our  farewell 


8o 

minutes  too  dear  to  wait  till  we  must  part 
before  others,"  said  he,  with  a  smile. 

"  We  cannot  part,"  murmured  she,  inclin- 
ing towards  him  like  a  wave  about  to  break. 
"  I  go  with  you,  beloved  —  I  stay  with  you. 
If  you  want  to  find  me,  search  the  marrow 
of  your  bones  and  the  core  of  your  heart, 
for  I  am  there !  Go  now,  so  that  I  may  begin 
to  be  with  you.  Go,  or  this  body  of  mine 
will  stifle  me  !"  She  broke  off  with  a  laugh 
more  touching  than  tears. 

Her  vehemence  startled  him  ;  it  was  as  if 
she  had  guessed  his  purpose.  With  a  touch 
of  heroism  he  said,  "  Only  three  days  more, 
you  know — less  than  three!" 

She  took  his  face  between  her  hands  and 
looked  at  him. 

"  Thought  and  hope  are  the  part  of  love 
which  only  absence  can  give,"  she  said,  at 
length.  "  Now  I  know  how  pain  can  be 
happiness."  She  closed  her  eyes  with  those 
words,  and  when  she  opened  them  again  her 
lover  was  gone. 


IX 


"  From  Death's  Beleaguer  Life  besieged  I  shield- 
Inmost  from  outer  guard,  Pure  from  Impure  : 
My  sacred  Infant  fain  would  Cowards  yield 
To  Age  profane,  stood  not  my  Name  secure !" 

>TRATHSPEY  mounted  his  horse 
and  rode  down  through  the  gate, 
and  out  into  the  road  towards  the  wood. 
The  level  moon-rays  shone  upon  him  as  he 
rode.  He  did  not  look  back. 

Three  days  more  of  earth  !  He  drew  a  full 
breath,  struck  his  clinched  hand  against  his 
chest,  twisted  his  mustaches.  He  touched 
his  horse  with  the  spur,  reining  him  in  at 
the  same  moment,  and  felt  him  bound  be- 
neath him.  He  heard  the  steel-shod  hoofs 
smite  the  solid  road.  Only  three  days  more ! 
Life,  life,  life  ! — what  is  it  ? 

Now  that  the  end  (or  the  change)  was  so 


82 

near,  he  could  contemplate  the  scope  and 
proportions  of  his  career,  as  might  a  biog- 
rapher hereafter.  A  bright,  happy,  active 
beginning;  a  young  manhood  blooming  with 
lusty  potencies,  practical  capacities,  clean 
ambitions ;  honor  from  man  and  favor  from 
woman  ;  the  world  all  running  his  way,  bear- 
ing him  on  and  up ;  then,  to  crown  good 
fortune,  a  brilliant  marriage.  After  that, 
seven  years  of  bitter,  stubborn,  degrading 
antagonism  —  the  more  bitter  because  hid- 
den from  the  world  —  and  finally,  surrender 
of  hope,  and  decorous  separation  by  mut- 
ual consent. 

That  was  the  story.  She  had  ruined  him, 
by  the  only  means  that  can  ruin  such  a  man  ; 
sapping  the  sources  of  his  energy,  destroy- 
ing the  roots  of  his  self-respect,  stabbing  the 
vitals  of  his  aspiration.  She  knew  where  to 
strike.  She  had  fathomed  the  frailties  of  the 
strong  man,  and  practised,  with  fatal  sagac- 
ity, the  art  of  inflaming  his  evil  and  blight- 
ing his  good.  But  was  not  he  also  to  blame  ? 


83 

Twas  very  likely.  Now  that  the  sands  were 
run  out,  he  might  judge  dispassionately, 
making  all  allowances  for  her,  and  sparing 
no  truths  against  himself. 

He  rode  into  the  wood ;  it  was  dark,  save 
for  the  web  of  tangled  fire  which  the  fire- 
flies wove  around  him.  Upon  the  canvas 
of  the  night  he  saw  her  in  all  her  phases 
from  first  to  last.  Her  image  had  been  so 
branded  into  him  that  at  times  of  strong 
emotion  it  rose  into  visibility,  like  the  mark 
on  the  shoulder  of  a  convict  when  struck 
with  the  hand.  She  was  a  fascinating  creat- 
ure, carrying  her  gifts  of  intellect,  wit,  and 
beauty,  and  her  refinement  of  wealthy  breed- 
ing, with  a  grace  as  light  as  a  child's  bearing 
a  handful  of  wild-flowers.  In  whatever  so- 
ciety she  found  herself,  she  became  the  spark 
of  vitality,  the  point  of  high  light. 

Oh,  that  slender,  vivid  face ;  that  airy  fig- 
ure ;  those  delicate  lips  of  subtle  laughter 
and  elfin  satire ;  those  dancing,  glancing, 
measuring,  probing  eyes !  But  within  were 


the  intrepidity  of  a  trooper,  the  cruelty  of  a 
Borgia,  the  malignity  of  a  Mephistopheles — 
such  qualities,  at  least,  he  had  found  in  her. 
Yet  he  could  admit  that,  united  to  another 
than  himself,  she  might  have  proved  gra- 
cious and  lovable.  There  are  spiritual  com- 
binations whose  parts,  benign  in  themselves, 
turn  each  other  to  poison  by  transcendental 
chemistry.  He  and  she  who,  apart,  might 
have  been  fountains  of  use  and  honor,  had 
by  their  union  transformed  each  other  into 
powers  of  evil,  and  sowed  in  society  yet  one 
seed  more  of  the  old  corruption. 

At  times  when  she  had  been  unconscious 
of  observation — when,  perhaps,  she  had  been 
recalling  girlish  visions  of  what  life  might 
have  in  store  for  her — he  had  seen  her  look 
so  wistful  and  tender  that  he  could  have 
wept  and  loved  her.  But  did  he  make  overt 
hints  thereto,  scepticism  and  aversion  would 
flicker  from  her  eyes  and  curve  her  lips.  "  I 
know  you  to  the  bottom,  and  you  are  despi- 
cable," said  her  glance.  Possibly  she  too  had 


85 

at  times  tried  to  approach  him,  and  he,  blind 
to  her  intent,  had  repulsed  her.  The  move- 
ments of  their  natures  were  mutually  inscru- 
table. Save  in  external  ways,  devoid  of  life, 
they  could  not  meet.  Stars  in  their  orbits 
were  not  more  alien  than  they;  but  where- 
as stars  respected  the  decree  of  boundless 
space,  ordained  to  admit  free  development 
of  opposites,  he  and  she  had  forsaken  their 
divinely  appointed  paths  and  swept  into  dis- 
astrous collision. 

Nevertheless,  during  seven  years  one  roof 
had  covered  from  the  world  the  unceasing 
duel  which  was  their  existence.  She  sur- 
passed him  in  vitality  and  constancy  of  ha- 
tred, and  could  draw  delight  from  his  suffer- 
ing though  her  own  might  be  not  less;  she 
planned  and  brooded  and  sought  new  ways 
of  attack,  cunningly  and  persistently  pro- 
voking his  more  passive  aversion,  until  at 
last  it  would  kindle  into  flame,  and  then  it 
was  terrible  and  pathetic  to  see  her  joy. 

There  was  a  period  when  he  had  thought 


86 

that  her  hate  might  perhaps  be  a  sort  of 
perverted  love.  In  a  sense,  a  woman  who 
hates  and  she  who  loves  are  akin.  Both 
feed  on  their  passion,  seek  intimate  ways  to 
gratify  it,  and  tempt  its  object  to  demon- 
strate a  responsive  feeling.  Hate  might 
then  be  construed  as  love  driven  by  its  in- 
tensity to  mask  as  its  own  opposite.  Was 
this  the  key  to  conduct  which  had  often 
seemed  to  Strathspey  insane  in  its  malig- 
nity? Might  not  love,  unable  for  whatever 
cause  to  find  its  normal  expression,  prompt 
to  deeds  of  fantastic  malice — nay,  to  mur- 
der? For  murder  would  bind  them  to- 
gether in  a  sort  of  infernal  marriage ;  there- 
after each  fresh  act  of  mutual  rancor  would 
weld  their  souls  together  more  inextricably, 
till  at  last  they  should  become,  as  it  were, 
a  single  organism  of  agony,  tearing  continu- 
ally at  its  own  heart  with  a  rage  inexhaust- 
ibly renewed  by  what  it  thirsted  to  destroy. 
But  this  supposition  had  not  survived 
analysis.  Were  the  antagonisms  of  selfhood 


87 

as  infinite  as  its  attractions,  the  power  of  hell 
would  equal  that  of  heaven.  But  hell,  own- 
ing the  self-love  of  the  finite  creature  as  its 
source,  partakes  of  the  creature's  finiteness, 
whereas  heaven  exists  by  love,  the  substance 
of  the  Infinite  Creator.  Hatreds  die  out 
in  their  own  evil  fire,  while  the  vitality  of 
love  cannot  but  increase  to  eternity.  And 
though  love  may  at  first  attract  with  a  force 
that  reacts  towards  repulsion,  yet  the  innate 
health  and  sanity  of  the  divine  emotion  pres- 
ently correct  this  perversity.  Only  sophis- 
try can  pretend  a  real  confusion  between  the 
two. 

But  why  should  the  coming  together  of 
these  two — which  at  worst  was  hardly  more 
than  a  venial  mistake  of  judgment — involve 
penalties  so  severe  ?  Crime  expects  punish- 
ment ;  but  who  would  declare  their  marriage 
a  crime  ?  They  had  met,  been  attracted  to 
each  other,  and  their  union  had  seemed,  both 
from  a  personal  and  from  a  worldly  point  of 
view,  expedient.  Their  previous  lives  had 


88 

been  blameless.  With  what  justice,  then, 
were  they  Called  on  to  suffer  such  torments? 
— the  ill  effects  of  which,  far  from  being  re- 
stricted to  the  immediate  pain  they  wrought, 
darkened  and  corrupted  the  nature  of  their 
victims,  and  set  them  on  the  path  leading  to 
adultery  and  murder. 

Such  an  arraignment  of  the  divine  good- 
ness arises  from  our  confounding  the  qualities 
of  human  with  those  of  natural  law. 

Natural  law  (whether  on  the  material  or 
the  spiritual  plane)  differs  from  human  law 
in  that  it  regards  no  persons  and  inflicts  no 
chastisements.  It  is  simply  a  beneficent  cur- 
rent conservative  of  the  integrity  of  the  en- 
tire creation.  Opposition,  be  it  witting  or 
unwitting,  to  this  current  implies  for  the 
opponent  pain  or  annihilation,  as  the  case 
may  be.  But  the  law  itself  never  punishes — 
it  can  only  bless. 

Thus  the  saint  who  falls  overboard  is 
drowned  despite  his  sanctity,  since  water 
misapplied  could  abdicate  its  asphyxiating 


quality  only  by  violating  the  economy  of 
the  universe.  Innocent  of  animosity  against 
the  saint,  it  yet  kills  him  in  deference  to  in- 
terests infinitely  above  those  of  his  continued 
physical  existence.  Were  water  subject  to 
human  instead  of  to  divine  administration, 
no  doubt  it  would  drown  sinners  only,  and 
let  the  elect  go  free. 

Natural  law,  in  short,  being  the  guise 
assumed  by  Divine  Love  in  its  function  tow- 
ards organic  or  unconscious  man,  is  out  of 
relation  with  his  personal  or  self-conscious 
phase  —  at  least,  until  the  latter  shall  have 
fulfilled  its  office  of  accomplishing  the  volun- 
tary conjunction  of  creature  with  Creator. 
On  the  other  hand,  human  law  deals  with 
the  selfhood  exclusively,  attacking  its  illu- 
sions as  realities,  and  treating  sin  (which  is 
but  the  characteristic  and  transient  insanity 
of  the  selfhood)  as  if  it  involved  actual  dis- 
cord between  the  divine  and  the  human 
nature.  Justice  and  punishment  are  its 
shibboleths — brave  words,  but  the  ideas  they 


90 

express  own  no  heavenly  origin  ;  earth  be- 
gat them,  and  in  the  torrid  swamps  of  hell 
they  riot  with  tropic  luxuriance.  No  taint 
of  justice  defiles  Him  who  said,  "  Neither  do 
I  condemn  thee !"  nor  does  that  father  pun- 
ish who  welcomes  his  prodigal  with  kisses 
and  feasting.  Punishment  lies  in  spontane- 
ous recognition  of  our  discord  with  infinite 
love,  and  repentance  is  seeking  again  that 
conjunction  with  life  from  which  crime  would 
divorce  us. 

But  though  human  and  natural  law  differ 
as  do  finite  and  infinite  in  both  quality  and 
function,  we  are  yet  often  misled  by  the 
former's  shallow  pattern  into  striving  to 
divert,  by  personal  pleas  of  guilt  and  inno- 
cence, the  cosmic  sweep  of  the  latter.  Strath- 
spey and  his  wife  broke  the  natural  law 
which  would  marry  persons  and  things  mut- 
ually compatible,  and  no  others.  Pain,  which 
they  interpreted  as  punishment,  was  the  con- 
sequence ;  and  being  conscious  of  individual 
righteousness  in  their  general  relations  with 


society,  they  deemed  their  fate  unjust,  and 
that  they  did  well  to  be  angry.  Since  no 
man  convinced  them  of  sin,  why  should  God 
do  so  ?  Having  rendered  unto  Caesar  the 
things  that  were  Caesar's,  they  held  their 
debt  to  their  Father  as  implicitly  liquidated. 

But  their  trespass  transcended  the  limits 
of  personal  aberration ;  it  was  wrong  done 
not  to  men,  but  to  the  nature  of  man,  for 
which  they — agents  at  once  of  the  wrong 
and  partakers  of  the  nature — were  bound  to 
suffer.  Not  individual  responsibility,  but  the 
integrity  of  creation  was  in  question,  which 
both  in  generals  and  in  particulars  is  a  mar- 
riage. Wisdom  espouses  love,  form  substance, 
man  woman,  all  save  the  last  being  natural 
and  therefore  perfect  unions;  the  last,  spir- 
itual as  well  as  natural,  because  voluntary, 
may  be  profaned,  and,  instead  of  rising  the 
radiant  consummation  of  the  rest,  may  sink 
below  the  naive  couplings  of  the  brute. 

Mismarriages,  outcome  of  artificial  culture 
and  ideals,  are  against  nature,  which  sponta- 


92 

neously  rejects  them.  The  misery  they  beget 
seeks  retaliation  on  its  cause  and  compensa- 
tion for  itself,  and  murder  embodies  the  first, 
adultery  the  second  impulse.  Circumstance 
and  training  may  restrain  much,  but  from  the 
moment  husband  and  wife  have  looked  on 
each  other  with  hatred  the  worst  is  possible. 
And  though  society  —  so  long  as  these  vic- 
tims of  its  ceremonial  and  their  own  egoism 
abstain  from  overt  criminality  —  continues 
complacently  to  entertain  them,  yet  the  in- 
stant their  evil  emerges  from  the  darkness 
of  their  hearts  into  the  light  of  vulgar  pub- 
licity is  a  merciless  leopard  at  their  throats. 
Hence  hypocrisy  completes  the  infernal  cat- 
egory. But  the  penalties  of  human  law  can 
be  avoided  only  by  allowing  those  of  natural 
law  the  fuller  scope. 

All  the  ingenuity  of  intellect  and  wisdom 
of  experience  have  failed  to  devise  a  cure  for 
the  predicament  in  which  Strathspey  and  his 
wife  had  placed  themselves.  Divorce  restores 
nothing  that  has  been  lost,  and  patient  for- 


93 

bearance  seems  beyond  the  strength  of  those 
weak  enough  to  fall  into  the  snare.  But  if 
earthly  resources  offered  no  relief,  there, 
once  more,  was  death,  and  what  might  lie 
beyond.  And  for  Strathspey  death  was  now 
both  relief  and  hope  ! 

Riding  out  of  the  dark  wood,  he  saw  the 
mountain  lifting  itself  sublime  against  the 
stars.  The  voice  of  the  river,  calling  him, 
promising  peace,  came  distinctly  to  his  ears. 
As  he  breasted  the  ascent  he  spoke  to  his 
horse,  which  responded  with  a  gallop.  High- 
er they  mounted  and  higher,  into  cooler  air. 
Only  three  days  more  between  him  and 
freedom ! 


X 


"  Worlds,  Wisdom,  Power,  the  Sky,  are  thine  by 

right, 

Art  thou  so  rich  my  suppliant  to  be. 
Wouldst  buy,  base  Mendicant,  my  wealth  of  me? 
Hunger  I  sell  thee,  Nakedness,  and  Night !" 

'HE  road,  doubling  in  and  out  around 
the  projecting  mountain-spurs,  and 
sometimes  returning  upon  itself  at  a  higher 
level,  gradually  trended  towards  the  east,  to 
the  point  where  it  crossed  the  river.  On 
either  hand,  as  he  rode,  was  a  steep  preci- 
pice, dropping  darkly  down  on  the  right, 
mounting  sheer  upward  on  the  left,  and 
everywhere  clothed  with  vegetation.  The 
tops  of  tall  trees  reached  up  as  if  to  grasp 
him  from  beneath,  and  the  roots  of  others 
overhung  his  head  above.  The  pallid  rib- 
bon of  road  wound  amidst  this  silent  obscu- 


95 

rity  like  a  path  miraculously  hung  in  space. 
No  breeze  penetrated  this  mighty  ravine ; 
each  leaf  and  frond  stood  motionless  as  if 
enchanted.  But  the  vitality  and  profusion 
of  plant  life  were  greater  here  than  on  the 
lower  levels ;  for  the  sharp  summits  of  the 
mountain  caught  the  drifting  clouds,  and 
compelled  them  to  linger  and  dissolve  in 
constant  showers,  whence  were  begotten 
thronging  ferns  and  thick  cushions  and  tap- 
estries of  moss.  The  leaves  of  the  trees 
spread  larger,  and  the  slender  pillared  boles 
rose  aloft  as  if  in  thronging  competition  for 
the  sky.  Such  fury  of  life,  such  immobili- 
ty !  Insects  were  fewer ;  the  firefly  showers 
of  the  plain  were  reduced  to  here  and  there 
a  wandering  atom  of  light ;  the  chorus  of 
tree-frogs  had  dwindled  to  intermittent  voices 
of  solitude.  Only  the  rushing  undertone  of 
the  river  abode  unceasingly  in  the  ear,  rising 
and  falling  as  the  road  passed  behind  moun- 
tain parapets  or  surmounted  them. 

At  length,  half-way  up  the   ravine,   the 


96 

rider  bore  to  the  right  and  reached  the  nar- 
row bridge.  He  halted  on  its  arch,  and 
looked  below. 

Even  since  he  had  passed,  that  afternoon, 
the  stream  had  swollen.  A  tumult  of  wa- 
ters hurtled  downward,  twisted  and  whirled 
into  fantastic  forms,  which  from  moment  to 
moment  kept  their  contours  unaltered  —  a 
constant  force  casting  in  identical  moulds 
the  ever-shifting  substance,  as  soul  moulds 
body.  Headlong  motion  thus  assumed  the 
semblance  of  immobility,  and  the  roar  of  the 
cataract  seemed  disconnected  with  it  —  the 
strain  of  a  titanic  harp  smitten  by  the  invis- 
ible spirit  of  the  mountain.  After  Strath- 
spey had  gazed  awhile,  the  vibration  of  this 
mighty  music  communicated  its  contagion 
to  his  brain,  and  he  felt  drawn  as  by  a 
myriad  viewless  but  potent  threads  of  be- 
guilement  to  merge  himself  in  the  wild  dia- 
pason. But  he  sat  still — his  hour  was  not 
yet  come ! 

His  three  days  were  none  too  many  for 


97 

winding  up  his  account  with  the  world.  In 
order  to  vanish  with  a  plausible  appearance 
of  unpremeditation,  many  things  must  be 
premeditated.  He  must  plan  out  for  him- 
self an  imaginary  future,  and  prepare  data 
to  convince  whom  it  might  concern  that  he 
had  been  anticipating  an  existence  full  of 
activities.  And  he  must  provide  against  the 
possibility  that  any  associate  of  his  former 
career — she  above  all  from  whose  fatal  shad- 
ow he  was  escaping — should  be  induced  to 
reveal  the  facts  that  it  behooved  him  to 
hide.  Until  their  union  hereafter  Yolande 
must  deem  his  honor  spotless. 

"  And  what  then  ?"  he  asked  himself.  "  In 
the  end  a  time  will  come  when  all  hearts  are 
open  and  no  secrets  hid.  She  will  know  me 
as  I  am  at  last.  Then  why  not  as  well  now 
as  later?  Am  I  hiding  the  truth  for  her 
sake,  or  for  my  own  ?  Am  I  not  a  coward 
both  towards  Yolande  and  towards  my  wife 
—  an  out-and-out  coward?  Hum!  I  must 
look  into  this." 


98 

In  the  preoccupation  of  his  bent  to  sui- 
cide, its  justification  had  not  concerned  him. 
It  now  became  insistent,  as  if  some  one 
stood  beside  him  and  demanded  an  answer. 

A  coward  deserting  his  colors  under  fire ! 
The  very  eagerness  with  which  he  had  ac- 
cepted this  facile  means  of  shirking  trouble 
should  have  warned  him  to  doubt  its  hon- 
esty. It  had  taken  a  lifetime  of  error  and 
selfishness  to  bring  him  to  his  present  pass 
—what  miraculous  virtue  lay  in  a  plunge  off 
a  bridge  to  make  wholesome  and  straighten 
his  diseased  and  crooked  soul?  And  since 
the  soul  gives  the  environment,  this  also — so 
far  as  its  spiritual  bearing  on  him  went — must 
remain  unmodified-by  any  act  of  mere  physical 
violence.  Nay,  the  unmufHing  of  the  senses 
wrought  by  death  would  but  make  them 
more  sensitive  to  the  ills  he  sought  to  fly. 
He  was  not  a  coward,  merely,  but  a  fool ! 

"After  killing  myself  I  shall  be  as  ill  off  as 
before,  and  probably  worse,"  was  his  con- 
clusion. 


99 

Then  how  could  he  expect  to  draw  nearer 
Yolande  by  that  act?  Between  pure  and 
corrupt,  selfish  and  unselfish,  is  a  great  gulf 
fixed,  which  might  be  bridged  on  the  material 
plane,  but  not  on  the  other.  No ;  the  only 
way  to  deserve  Yolande  was  to  cleanse  him- 
self from  defilement — a  process  more  labo- 
rious than  drowning,  and  of  a  different  char- 
acter. 

How  should  he  be  cleansed  ?  Strathspey 
looked  this  way  and  that,  but  knew  before- 
hand that  there  was  for  him  but  one  course. 
He  had  desired  death — he  should  have  it ; 
but  death  not  of  the  body,  but  of  mortal 
pride  and  egoism,  involved  in  taking  up  again 
the  burden  he  had  laid  down.  He  must  take 
it  up  and  so  bear  it  that  it  at  last  be  trans- 
figured into  the  very  robe  and  crown  of  sal- 
vation. Ah,  that  would  be  to  die  indeed  ! 
He  groaned  at  the  thought  of  it,  and  sweat 
started  on  his  forehead. 

"Can  I  do  it?"  he  asked  himself.  "  Go 
back  to  my  wife  and  turn  the  curse  of  our 


100 


life  into  a  blessing  ?     God  !  is  there  no  other 
way?" 

The  temple  we  overthrew,  and  not  another, 
must  we  rebuild.  Marriage  had  been  by  him 
dishonored,  and  must  by  him  be  restored  to 
honor.  By  what  right  otherwise  might  he 
claim  its  sanctification  ?  Though  between 
him  and  his  wife  no  true  conjugal  union  was 
or  had  ever  been  possible,  yet  might  they 
too  vindicate  the  holiness  of  its  name.  Their 
very  disinclination  to  each  other  might  render 
more  pure  and  potent  their  loyalty  to  the 
marriage  principle.  No  disguises  !  It  must 
be  understood  that  they  came  together  in 
the  teeth  of  personal  impulse,  to  do  im- 
personal right — their  compensation,  the  au- 
stere satisfaction  of  atoning  for  wrong  done 
to  the  human  nature  within  them.  Incom- 
patible as  individuals,  as  man  and  woman 
they  could  meet  with  respect  and  charity. 
They  could  educate  each  other  to  disregard 
surface  discords  of  self  for  the  sake  of  the 
vital  harmonies  within,  and  thus  become  fit 


101 


for  union  beyond  the  grave  with  their  true 
mates  in  the  holy  estate  which  they  had  for- 
feited here. 

True,  she  might  decline  to  co-operate  in 
this  enterprise.  Easy  to  imagine  the  sarcas- 
tic scepticism  with  which  she  might  greet 
the  proposal.  "  You  ask  me  to  act  as  your 
moral  disinfectant,  to  perfume  you  into  the 
graces  of  another  woman.  You  must  excuse 
me !  If  she  is  too  fastidious  to  take  you  as 
you  are,  she  is  perhaps  better  without  you." 
But  though  at  first  she  might  hold  that  tone, 
Strathspey  did  not  believe  it  would  survive 
her  recognition  of  his  honesty.  She  was  too 
intelligent  to  deny  the  truth  of  his  argument, 
and,  finding  him  practically  faithful  to  it, 
would  emulate  his  loyalty.  In  any  event, 
his  course  must  be  the  same.  He  owed  her 
more  reparation  than  she  owed  him ;  his  in- 
itiative had  brought  them  together,  and  their 
separation  had  left  her  at  the  mercy  of  slan- 
derous tongues,  and  to  the  temptation  to 
take  what  solace  lay  in  justifying  their  malice. 


102 

But  by  returning  to  the  protection  of  her 
honor  he  would  restore  its  value  in  her  own 
eyes ;  and  his  self-effacement  for  ideal  mar- 
riage' sake  would,  he  hoped,  reanimate  her 
belief  in  it  which  their  personal  failure  had 
slain.  At  any  rate,  he  would  do  his  best  to 
rehabilitate  her  without  and  within. 

So  far,  good  ;  but  what  of  Yolande  ? 

His  pretext  for  suicide  had  been  to  keep 
untouched  her  faith  in  him  and  her  igno- 
rance of  worldly  evil.  The  pretext — but  was 
it  the  motive?  Had  he  been  unhampered, 
and  another  man  with  such  a  past  as  his  had 
attempted  to  win  Yolande  from  him,  would 
he  in  that  case  have  hesitated  to  disenchant 
her  by  the  revelation  of  his  rival's  iniquities? 
Not  he !  he  would  have  praised  himself  for 
warning  her  what  a  goodly  outside  falsehood 
hath.  Plainly,  then,  he  was  seeking  less  to 
keep  her  from  evil  knowledge  than  to  white- 
wash himself.  But  his  duty  to  her  was  to  be 
honest — to  show  her  his  seamy  side,  since  he 
had  one.  It  was  not  for  him  but  for  Prov- 


IQ3 

idence  to  mould  truth  to  ends  of  benefi- 
cence. If  it  grieved  or  even  alienated  her,  bet- 
ter that  than  to  deceive  her.  She  was  like 
other  human  beings,  born  into  the  world  to 
be  shaped  by  knowledge  and  strengthened 
by  sorrow  —  not  to  slip  through  it  in  a  vain 
dream  of  its  innocence.  Knowledge  of  evil 
is  to  the  good  the  awakening  of  charity. 
Heaven's  light  could  not  inform  angels  were 
there  no  dark  of  hell  from  which  to  win  re- 
demption. 

Strathspey  looked  down  once  more  into 
the  foaming  rapids  and  shook  his  head  with 
a  short  laugh. 

"  It's  not  so  easy  as  I  thought,"  said  he. 
"  But  have  I  got  it  in  me  to  see  this  thing 
through?  Perhaps  since  I've  been  able  to 
see  straight,  I  shall  get  strength  to  do  right. 
Well — don't  grow  cold  on  it !  See  her  to- 
morrow and  tell  her  the  facts  day  after  to- 
morrow— there's  a  steamer !" 

He  shook  his  rein  and  passed  on  up  the 
mountain. 


XI 

"When  from  Me  thou  strayest, 
All  Heaven  thou  betray est. 
So  thou  return  to  Me, 
All  Heaven  shall  wait  on  thee !" 

IE  A  R  A  N  G  U  S,—  If  you  get  this  letter 
(there  is  just  a  doubt  if  I  send  it)  you  will 
know  it  is  my  last  as  well  as  my  first,  and 
requires  no  answer.  It  is  a  year  since  I  saw  you ;  I 
hated  the  sight  of  you  then,  and  should  still  were 
you  to  return ;  but,  as  it  is,  I  have  no  hard  feeling 
towards  you,  and  dare  say  that  but  for  our  marriage 
we  might  have  been  good  friends.  You  are  not  a 
bad  man,  though  I  brought  the  bad  out  of  you,  and 
hated  your  good  qualities  because  they  were  yours. 
Had  you  justified  my  hate  by  being  an  unmixed 
devil,  I  should  have  hated  you  less ;  but  as  I  felt 
that  hating  you  involved  hating  your  good  as  well 
as  your  bad,  and  as  that  was  injustice  (which  I  hate), 
of  course  I  hated  you  all  the  more. 

"  I  could  almost  imagine  a  time  or  state  in  which 


we  could  laugh  at  the  absurdity  of  our  marriage. 
And  yet  a  false  marriage  is  throwing  what  is  holy 
to  the  dogs,  which  can  never  be  laughable.  Only 
perfect  love  should  possess  what  husband  and  wife 
surrender  to  each  other,  and  when  there  is  no  love 
it  is  like  dogs  slavering  over  the  communion-table. 
It  is  about  the  only  unmitigated  tragedy  1  can 
think  of ;  for  if  the  source  of  the  stream  be  muddy, 
how  can  anything  pure  ever  come  from  it?  Be- 
side this  misfortune  our  trumpery  personal  quar- 
rel seems  nothing.  As  fellow -sufferers  we  should 
rather  feel  mutual  sympathy  and  compassion.  Any 
injury  we  could  do  each  other  would  be  a  trifle 
compared  with  the  injury  already  done  us  by  our 
marriage  —  a  ridiculous  anticlimax.  One's  sense 
of  humor  must  be  low  to  admit  of  it.  To  curse 
God  and  die  (whatever  that  fine  thing  may  be) 
seems  more  dignified. 

"The  fact  is,  reason,  which  we  so  extol,  never 
fails  to  betray  us  at  the  pinch.  Nothing  is  more 
irrational  than  personal  antagonisms.  I  might  have 
loved  in  another  man  the  same  things  I  hated  in 
you.  What  could  be  more  silly  ?  As  if  the  same 
wine  poured  into  glasses  of  two  different  shapes 
should  in  one  be  poison,  in  the  other  life !  We  call 
it  silly  because  it  is  a  mystery  beyond  our  compre- 


io6 

hension.  There  seems  to  be  something  more  po- 
tent (at  least  to  our  finite  minds)  in  form  than  in 
substance  —  perhaps  because  form  itself  is  limita- 
tion and  substance  infinity.  Could  you  and  I  be 
dissolved  and  the  same  material  made  up  in  other 
forms,  we  might  love  each  other.  But  forms  can 
never  change,  though  their  contents  one  hopes 
may  be  purified.  You  and  I  could  never,  even  were 
we  angels  of  the  third  heaven,  endure  each  other's 
presence.  Luckily  the  universe  has  antipodes  for 
the  accommodation  of  cases  such  as  ours.  Sirius 
and  Arcturus  are  both  respectable  stars,  but  never- 
theless, I  believe,  are  very  remote  one  from  the 
other. 

"  I  never  told  you,  nor  did  you  suspect  it — but  my 
one  supreme  desire  in  this  world  was  for  a  child.  A 
baby  at  my  breast  would  have  broken  down  the 
hardness  with  which  I  protected  myself  against 
you,  and  something  precious  in  my  heart  would 
have  gushed  out  with  my  mother's  milk.  But  now 
I  thank  God  no  baby  came,  for  evil  and  good  would 
have  been  so  mingled  in  it  that  nothing  could  have 
saved  us.  And  since  we  were  deprived  of  that 
curse  in  guise  of  blessing,  some  real  blessing  may 
await  us  hereafter.  But  I  don't  know  exactly  what 
I  mean  by  this.  I  can  imagine  no  blessing  fit  to 


name  beside  a  dear  little  baby  —  my  own  precious 
baby — clinging  to  me  and  knowing  nothing  better 
than  to  love  me.  And  that  is  an  experience  I  can 
never  have. 

"  I  feel  really  sorry  for  you,  and  hope  you  can  feel 
sorry  for  me.  We  wanted  with  all  our  hearts  to  be 
happy,  and  yet  could  not  help  being  each  other's 
misery.  Love,  I  am  convinced,  is  not  a  physical 
thing,  but  a  spirit,  without  which  the  most  beautiful 
physical  conditions  are  an  ugly  corpse.  To  miss 
true  love  altogether  may  be  death,  but  to  try  for  it 
and  miss  it,  as  we  did,  is  murder.  You  did  me  the 
irreparable  harm  of  asking  me  to  marry  you,  and  I 
returned  it  by  accepting  you.  We  had  fallen  into 
the  habit  of  patterning  our  conduct  on  what  society 
did,  and  this  seemed  but  the  natural  culmination  of 
a  thousand  other  dashing  and  shallow  things ;  in- 
deed, it  was  just  that — the  final  step  of  a  smoothly 
graduated  series.  But  it  was  fatal  as  well  as  final : 
the  devil  leading  us  along  in  his  fascinating  way 
from  one  point  to  another,  and  at  last,  with  his 
most  insinuating  grimace  of  all,  pushing  us  over  the 
precipice. 

"  Why  should  I  say  I  forgive  you,  or  that  I  ask 
you  to  forgive  me  ?  What  is  forgiveness  ?  Seems 
to  me  all  evil  and  all  good  are  done  through  rather 


io8 


than  by  us ;  we  but  consent  to  be  the  medium.  The 
account  of  mischief  is  even  between  us.  We  let 
ourselves  be  duped  by  that  old  charlatan  of  Gene- 
sis into  accepting  the  flashy  frescoes  on  the  outer 
walls  of  the  House  of  Life  for  the  life  itself  within. 
He  ogled  you  through  my  eyes  and  wheedled  me 
through  your  voice.  The  masquerade  was  success- 
ful for  the  moment,  threadbare  though  it  seems 
now. 

"  I  have  had  some  idle  time  on  my  hands  of 
late  which  I  have  occupied  with  meditations  on 
your  future.  You  have  the  masculine  advantage  of 
being  able  to  weather  such  a  storm  as  ours ;  and 
being  in  the  prime  of  life,  it  would  be  against  nature 
not  to  wish  for  a  comfortable  wife  and  a  season  of 
domestic  felicity.  It  has  been  no  hardship  to  me 
that  our  separation  did  not  permit  another  mar- 
riage. I  am  deficient  in  the  insatiable  enterprise 
that  animates  some  ladies  in  my  position.  But 
women's  society  of  some  kind  is  indispensable  to 
most  men.  Now,  I  chose  to  believe — whether  from 
vanity  or  from  confidence  in  your  self-respect — that 
so  long  as  we  lived  under  the  same  roof  you  al- 
lowed yourself  no  vulgar  consolation.  And  though 
it  may  be  assuming  quite  exceptional  virtue  on  your 
part,  I  please  myself  with  the  thought  that  you 


JQ9 

have  not  done  so  even  yet.  I  am  jealous :  not  as  a 
loving  woman  is  jealous  lest  a  rival  win  her  man 
from  her,  nor  as  a  dog  in  the  manger,  keeping  from 
others  what  I  need  not  myself.  But  I  am  jealous 
to  be  free  from  the  reproach  of  having  driven  you 
to  low  actions,  and  to  have  you  escape  the  degra- 
dation of  doing  them.  For  all  its  selfishness,  this 
jealousy  is  the  nearest  approach  to  a  wifely  feeling 
(seems  to  me)  I  have  ever  had  towards  you.  I 
want  you  to  succeed  despite  our  failure.  And  yet 
I  confess  that  while  we  were  together  I  did  my  ut- 
most to  defeat  my  desire  by  tormenting  you  past 
endurance.  But  a  woman  needs  to  feel  she  has 
some  power  over  her  husband,  if  only  to  make  him 
hate  her ! 

"  But  our  separation  put  an  end  to  this  amuse- 
ment, and  I  cooled  down  to  a  consideration  of  what 
was  to  happen  to  you.  Had  I  had  the  enthusiastic 
temperament  of  a  woman  I  read  of  in  a  French 
novel,  I  might  have  promoted  your  marriage  by  dis- 
interestedly furnishing  you  with  legal  grounds  of 
divorce.  But  my  sense  of  humor  would  not  allow 
of  that.  Barring  that,  there  remained  suicide ;  but, 
however  little  enamoured  I  may  be  of  life,  I  have  a 
distaste  (as  you  know)  for  the  sensational,  and  could 
not,  besides,  face  the  humiliation  of  leaving  you  to 


no 


imagine  that  I  died  in  despair  at  your  abandon- 
ment. Moreover,  I  should  have  laughed  in  my 
own  face  in  the  looking-glass  as  I  stood  up  in  front 
of  it  to  swallow  my  poison.  In  short,  with  every 
desire  to  help  you  out  if  I  decently  could,  my  in- 
genuity proved  unequal  to  devise  a  means. 

"  But  at  this  point  circumstance  intervened  and 
enables  me  to  close  this  long  letter  with  a  dramatic 
little  surprise.  The  letter,  by-the-way,  has  been 
even  more  tedious  to  write  than  to  read.  I  have 
been  a  week  at  it,  lying  on  my  back,  in  such  brief 
stints  as  my  condition  allowed.  Have  you  been 
wondering  what  ailed  my  handwriting  ?  My  horse 
bolted  in  the  park,  and  in  spite  of  the  heroism  of 
two  mounted  policemen  and  my  own  groom,  col- 
lided with  poor  old  Mrs.  Walsingham's  victoria  in 
the  drive.  My  back  was  hurt  (she  escaped  with 
a  fright),  and  Dr.  Jersey — you  remember  the  pom- 
pous old  goose  coquetting  with  his  reflection  in  the 
mirror  while  he  made  up  his  prescriptions — now 
sets  me  an  outside  limit  of  ten  days.  But  I  know 
myself,  and  what  I  want,  and  I  don't  think  I  shall 
keep  them  waiting  more  than  five. 

"  This  will  be  sent  you  immediately  afterwards. 
I  cordially  congratulate  myself,  Angus,  and  you. 
I  go  to  freedom,  and  I  leave  you  free.  It  has  been 


Ill 


neatly  done,  and,  on  the  whole,  promptly — for  re- 
member, some  women  in  my  place  would  have  lin- 
gered spitefully  on  to  ninety.  I  am  happy,  and  it 
will  be  your  own  fault,  now,  if  you  are  not.  I  send 
you  my  best  wishes,  and  beg  you,  as  a  last  favor, 
always  to  be  polite  to  Mrs.  Walsingham  for  my 
sake.  VIVIEN  STRATHSPEY. 

"  P.S.— I  couldn't  help  putting  that  last  in,  just 
for  fun.  I  feel  no  bitterness,  my  dear  boy,  and  I 
hope  there  will  be  none  in  your  thoughts  of  me. 

"V.  S." 

Strathspey  found  this  letter  awaiting  him 
when  he  reached  his  house  that  night.  He 
read  it,  standing  in  his  riding-dress  at  his 
dressing-table,  by  the  light  of  a  candle  ;  then 
he  sat  down  and  reread  it,  with  many  a 
pause  between  the  lines.  As  he  finished  it 
for  the  second  time,  and  the  hand  which 
held  the  painfully  pencil-written  sheets  sank 
upon  his  knee,  a  little  shower  of  rose  petals 
fluttered  down  and  rested  upon  the  signa- 
ture of  the  dead  woman,  and  upon  the  post- 
script. They  were  petals  of  the  rose  which 


112 


Yolande  had  given  him  in  the  garden,  telling 
him  he  would  recognize  it  in  heaven.  It 
was  as  if  the  living  had  sent  a  message  of 
sisterly  tenderness  to  the  dead. 

Yolande  and  Vivien :  the  maid  and  the 
wife :  the  living  and  the  dead :  the  beloved 
and  the  unloved !  Yet  were  they  sisters, 
one  in  sex,  forms  of  one  nature,  gifted  alike 
with  beauty  and  mind  and  power.  Why 
should  a  man  love  one  and  not  the  other, 
begetting  misery  and  death  where  might  be 
life  and  joy?  In  truth,  as  Vivien  had  said, 
this  is  a  mystery  of  mysteries.  Identical 
substance  in  differing  shapes  kindles  here 
supreme  desire,  invincible  repulsion  there. 
Are  human  likes  and  dislikes  but  the  mask 
of  Divine  Order,  weaving  the  rainbow  pat- 
tern of  its  web,  tuning  the  flawless  conso- 
nances of  its  symphony?  Operating,  like 
all  creative  power,  through  poles  of  kin  and 
alien,  innate  and  spontaneous  in  its  subjects, 
and  therefore  unerring,  order  distributes 
like  to  like,  and  averts  the  disease  of  con- 


"3 

fusion.  Only  for  Him  to  Whom  naught  save 
nothingness  is  alien  are  our  finite  differences 
indifferent ;  for  He  is  the  inmost  of  all  and 
each,  and  in  Him  (albeit  beyond  our  con- 
sciousness) abides  our  atonement. 

"  She  was  proud  and  generous,"  said 
Strathspey  to  himself,  thinking  thoughts 
too  sad  for  the  relief  of  tears.  "She  veils 
her  death  itself  with  raillery,  so  that  I 
might  not  see  my  part  in  it.  I  left  her  to 
face  the  ruin  of  her  life  alone,  and  now  she 
dies  with  a  smile  and  a  jest,  so  that  I  may 
the  more  easily  be  happy  on  her  grave.  For 
all  her  dauntless  show  of  gayety  and  inde- 
pendence, her  heart  was  broken.  No  one 
could  heal  it — I  least  of  all,  who  wronged 
her  most.  No,  nor  the  baby  she  longed  for, 
since  it  would  have  been  mine  as  well  as  hers. 
Yet  she  bore  me  no  grudge ;  she  desired  a 
means  to  set  me  free,  without  even  a  leg- 
acy of  remorse.  Many  a  wife  who  talked 
more  of  love  than  Vivien  of  hate  would 
have  proved  less  unselfish  in  the  end.  Hers 


114 

is  pure  human  kindness,  found  only  in  great 
souls.  She  humiliates  me :  even  had  we 
loved  each  other,  she  deserved  a  better  man 
than  I.  And  she  asks  me  to  think  of  her 
without  bitterness !  I  wish  she  might  have 
known  what  I  had  in  mind  to  do.  God  has 
done  best,  no  doubt ;  but  had  I  been  wor- 
thy, He  would  have  let  me  be  the  means. 
What  am  I  fit  for,  then  ?" 

The  most  unflattering  truth  we  are  called 
on  to  acknowledge  in  this  world  is,  that 
heaven,  though  it  may  be  lost,  cannot  be 
earned. 


XII 

Fires  freeze  without  my  Spark, 
Where  I  shine  not  Suns  are  dark ; 
Wanting  me,  Life  is  but  Death, 
Heaven  Hell  but  for  my  Breath." 

JTRATHSPEY  folded  up  the  rose 
petals  in  the  letter,  and  put  both  to- 
gether in  the  envelope.  He  had  no  inclina- 
tion to  sleep ;  so  having  changed  his  dress, 
he  went  out  on  the  veranda,  which  com- 
manded an  outlook  of  many  miles  over 
mountain,  plain,  and  sea.  A  breeze  came 
whispering  up  from  the  east,  and  the  air  was 
cool.  It  was  near  midnight. 

But  Strathspey  was  ill  at  ease.  For  the 
second  time  since  his  parting  with  Yolande 
were  the  foundations  of  the  deep  within  him 
broken  up.  He  was  thrown  abroad  in  space, 
without  aim  or  orbit.  To  one  used  to  sub- 


sist  on  purposes,  to  pride  himself  on  know- 
ing his  will  and  doing  it,  this  uncertainty 
was  more  trying  than  the  execution  of  any 
resolve,  be  it  ever  so  arduous. 

While  he  paced  to  and  fro  on  the  moun- 
tain-top, his  spirit  tumbled  far  down  in  val- 
leys of  doubt  and  shame.  The  formless 
darkness1  of  the  night  corresponded  with  the 
hollow  gloom  in  his  mind.  The  noise  of 
his  foot-fall  on  the  planks  jarred  upon  his 
nerves,  and  he  halted  and  gazed  out  towards 
the  sea,  though  his  eyes  admonished  him  of 
no  outward  objects.  Silence  and  darkness ! 
Over  him,  as  he  stood,  crept  the  sense  of 
solitude,  isolation,  rejection.  He  was  alone 
in  the  world  and  in  the  night,  but  still  more 
was  he  alone  in  the  spirit.  The  departure 
of  Vivien  seemed  to  separate  him  from  all 
the  living  world ;  even  the  image  of  Yolande 
receded  and  faded  like  a  dream ;  and  God 
Himself,  as  if  holding  him  unworthy  of  so 
much  as  chastisement,  removed  the  last  bar- 
rier to  his  desire,  and  turned  away.  In  this 


welter  of  despondence,  familiar  ideas  be- 
came phantasmal ;  and  almost  the  only 
thing  remaining  real  was  the  fact  of  Vivien's 
death. 

True,  he  had  accounted  her,  living,  the 
thorn  in  his  side,  the  cloud  before  his 
sun,  the  clog  on  his  aspiration ;  yet  did 
her  death  leave  him  as  a  body  deprived  of 
weight,  hanging  impotent  in  the  void.  Even 
as  his  enemy  (which  she  no  longer  was) 
she  had  been,  in  a  sense,  his  only  friend. 
For  our  apparent  misfortune  is  often  our 
surest  link  with  our  fellows  ;  through  dis- 
cipline of  darkness  we  learn  to  know  and 
value  light ;  and  the  fable  of  him  who  sold 
his  shadow  to  the  evil  one  betokens  those 
who,  seeking  to  shirk  the  common  mortal 
heritage  of  ill,  forfeit  along  with  it  their 
capacity  for  happiness. 

Strathspey  told  himself  that  equity  was 
not  met  in  his  case.  Apparently  nothing 
now  withheld  him  from  Yolande ;  but  the 
appearance  was  a  mockery.  Debarred  from 


atoning  for  his  misdeeds,  he  was  left  incom- 
petent to  the  freedom  born  of  absolution. 
To  qualify  him  for  union  with  Yolande,  he 
had  relied  upon  a  lifetime  of  self-abnega- 
tion with  Vivien ;  but  the  latter  being  now 
impossible,  with  what  face  could  he  pre- 
tend to  the  former  ?  Has  not  God  forsaken 
him  from  whom  He  takes  opportunity  for 
amends?  Nor  is  there  comfort  in  the  sug- 
gestion that,  knowing  his  frailty,  God  wills 
to  spare  him  the  foredestined  failure  of  an 
effort  to  atone.  For  above  all  things  else  a 
man  prizes  his  liberty,  since  thereon  depends 
his  very  being  as  a  man  ;  and  will  rather  cling 
to  it  in  the  depths  of  hell  than  stand  bereft 
of  it  beside  the  throne  of  the  Almighty. 
Let  him  fail  of  virtue,  if  he  must ;  let  him 
sell  heaven  for  a  mess  of  pottage,  if  he  will ; 
but  let  not  the  Lord  himself  presume  to 
tamper  with  his  sacred  freedom.  And  the 
man  who  believes  himself  to  have  been  thus 
juggled  with  stands  in  peril  of  worse  than 
death  and  the  judgment. 


A  fierce  resentment  began  to  smoulder  in 
Strathspey's  heart.  But  he  crushed  it  down> 
and  tried  to  think  again. 

"  What  shall  I  do  ?  Can  I  marry  Yolande, 
revealing  nothing?  No:  in  the  house  of 
true  marriage  must  be  no  locked  chambers. 
Marriage  must  be  free  intercourse  of  her  soul 
with  mine — not  a  paltry  game  of  hide-and- 
seek,  leading  us  each  year  further  apart.  If 
I  keep  my  true  self  from  her,  her  true  self 
will  be  lost  to  me  ;  my  seven  years  taught  me 
that,  if  nothing  else.  With  Yolande  and  me, 
it  must  be  all  or  nothing." 

He  stared  intently  into  the  darkness.  Its 
very  blankness  made  it  plastic  to  the  con- 
ceptions of  fantasy,  and  his  mind  was  un- 
naturally active.  Something  seemed  to  lurk 
yonder ;  no,  only  a  throbbing  in  his  own 
eyeballs,  which  seemed  to — seemed  to  figure 
forth  something — pshaw !  He  pressed  his 
fingers  over  his  eyes,  and  forcibly  repressed 
the  irregularity  of  his  breathing.  What  had 
he  been  saying? 


120 

"Go  to  Yolande — that  was  the  idea — go 
to  her  and  say,  '  I  have  ruined  one  woman's 
life  ;  reward  me  with  yours  !'  She  would  do 
it ;  in  her  heavenly  charity,  she  would  accept 
me.  But  how  could  I  accept  myself?  My 
sins  are  upon  me;  -no  purgatorial  fires  have 
burnt  me  clean  ;  I  can  show  no  guarantee  of 
good  behavior.  For  aught  I  know  or  can 
prove  to  the  contrary,  there  may  be  an  adul- 
terer or  a  murderer  here"  —  he  struck  his 
clinched  fist  over  his  heart  —  "  waiting  to 
practise  on  Yolande !  No — I'll  save  her  from 
that,  if  I  have  to  take  myself  by  the  throat 
to  do  it !  If  I  could  have  purged  myself — 
a  lifetime  of  sacrifice  with  Vivien  —  but 
Providence,  in  its  infinite  wisdom,  wouldn't 
have  that !  I'm  no  good  ;  a  lost  soul,  fit 
only  to  be  taken  by  the  throat  and — " 

He  checked  himself,  noticing  that  he  was 
speaking  aloud,  in  a  strange,  excited  voice. 
A  nervous  shudder  went  through  him ;  then 
another.  He  laid  his  hands  upon  the  wood- 
en rail  of  the  veranda,  bracing  himself  upon 


121 


it  with  all  his  force.  It  cracked  ;  it  broke, 
and  a  fragment  of  it  came  away.  He  flung 
it  from  him  into  the  shrubbery,  and  wiped 
the  sweat  from  his  forehead. 

"Come  —  mustn't  get  off  your  base,  you 
know  !"  He  laughed  a  moment  between  his 
set  teeth.  "  A  bit  played  out,  my  boy ;  but 
you're  all  right.  Steady — as  we  used  to  say 
in  the  crew — steady  !" 

Suddenly  he  lifted  his  face  and  peered, 
ghastly  pale,  into  the  blankness  of  darkness 
beyond  the  veranda. 

"  Now,  what  the  devil,"  muttered  he,  in 
the  carefully  restrained  tone  of  a  philosopher 
momentarily  perplexed,  "  is  that?" 

Darkness  and  silence. 

"Twenty -five  years  since  that  has  hap- 
pened to  me,"  he  went  on,  scarce  audibly,  and 
still  maintaining  his  close  gaze.  "  Used  to 
see  'em  after  being  ill ;  nervous  organiza- 
tion, father  said.  It's  nothing  ;  only  curious. 
What  are  you  shuddering  for,  you  fool  ?" 

There  was  another  pause. 


122 


"  Old  Maverick  explained  'em  to  us  in  class 
at  college.  Images  of  external  objects  pass- 
ing by  the  optic  nerve  to  the  brain  are  inter- 
preted .  .  .  That's  the  normal.  But  images 
may  originate  in  the  brain,  which  the  optic 
nerve,  unable  to  discriminate,  reports  back  as 
also  realities.  There  you  have  apparitions 
—  subjective  hallucinations.  That's  clear 
enough,  I  should  think.  I'll  reason  you 
down,  damn  you!" 

The  next  instant  he  stiffened,  his  right 
arm  stretched  out  tense  as  a  harp  -  string, 
fingers  extended.  "  Hold  on  ! — just  as  you 
were,  please !  You  can't  move,  you  know, 
because — " 

Gradually  the  tension  relaxed,  the  arm 
fell,  and  the  retained  breath  exhaled  from 
the  lungs.  He  nodded  his  head,  and  chuckled 
faintly. 

"  I  knew  I  could  reason  it  down.  It's  all 
right — only  it  had  no  business  to  move,  be- 
cause .  .  .  What  was  it  Maverick  said  ?  No 
matter ;  bed  and  sleep  are  what  I  need.  To- 


123 

morrow  .  .  .  Oh,  you're  there,  are  you  ? — 
you  scoundrel  !" 

He  wheeled  about  and  faced  down  the 
veranda.  It  is  horrible  that  such  things  are 
permitted.  Science  and  philosophy  will  lie, 
and  lie,  and  all  the  while  the  thing  itself 
creeps  up  behind  you  and  frights  the  man- 
hood out  of  you.  Horrible  ! 

And  yet  there  was  nothing  ostensibly  un- 
pleasant in  the  figure  confronting  Strath- 
spey. There  were  indeed  some  singular 
points  about  it.  Feature  by  feature  and 
limb  by  limb,  it  had  a  marvellously  familiar 
aspect ;  and  despite  the  dense  obscurity  in 
which  it  stood,  it  was  visible  in  every  detail. 
But  here  one  remarks  another  peculiarity — 
that  there  were  moments  when  it  seemed 
less  distinct  than  at  others.  And  these  va- 
riations were  apparently  dependent  upon  the 
mental  ebb  and  flow  in  the  observer. 

After  all,  however,  since  as  we  know  every 
man  has  two  selves,  what  more  natural  than 
that  in  seasons  of  special  perspicacity  they 


124 

should  become  objectively  cognizant  of  each 
other? 

"At  all  events,  my  dear  fellow,  here  we 
are.  No  friend  like  a  man's  self  to  pull  him 
out  of  a  hole — and  we  are  in  a  pretty  deep 
one !  But  there's  a  way  out — a  clean,  gen- 
tlemanly way — never  fear !" 

"That's  my  own  voice  —  I'm  saying  all 
this  !"  Strathspey  broke  in.  "  Steady !" 

He  had  a  feeling  that,  by  an  effort,  he 
might  overcome  and  banish  the  figure ;  but 
how  to  put  forth  the  effort  he  knew  not. 
On  the  other  hand,  would  not  the  figure  in- 
sensibly gain  dominion  over  him?  "It's  I 
am  the  real  one,  you  know !" 

Who  said  that  ? 

"Reason,  my  boy  — reason.  We  have 
been  making  a  bit  of  a  fool  of  ourselves  to- 
day ;  but  we  shall  square  accounts  yet.  We 
are  going  to  assert  our  manhood,  freedom, 
independence ;  to  accept  slights  and  insults 
from  no  one — not  even  from  Providence — 
eh?  That  was  all  very  pretty  about  immortal 


125 

love,  and  heaven,  and  atonement,  and  the 
rest  of  it ;  but  to  a  man  of  the  world  in  his 
sober  senses — eh?  Now,  Vivien  had  the 
right  stuff  in  her;  we  can  talk  about  acci- 
dents, but  we  know  well  enough  that  she 
had  the  proper  pride  to  arrange  what  should 
happen  when  the  game  was  up.  As  for 
Yolande— " 

"  You  lie !"  said  Strathspey ;  but  the  effort 
left  him  flaccid,  and  the  other  flowed  on. 

"  Plain,  straight-out  reason,  my  boy:  see 
things  as  they  are,  say  what  we  know ;  no 
more  sentiment  and  humbug — it's  gone  too 
far  for  that !  She  was  a  delicious  creature, 
Yolande;  innocent,  if  you  like — physically 
innocent;  but  what  does  that  amount  to? 
We  made  a  fool  of  ourselves  there  ;  she  was 
the  same  at  bottom  as  all  the  rest  of  them, 
and  she  would  have  preferred  to  have  us 
show  up  a  little  more  .  .  .  virile — eh?" 

There  was  a  guttural  noise,  such  as  comes 
from  a  creature  half-conscious  under  the  dis- 
secting knife,  but  no  words.  A  change  had 


126 

taken  place :  that  which  had  seemed  the 
phantom  was  now  the  reality,  and  flesh  and 
blood  had  become  the  apparition.  The  in- 
itiative was  with  the  former. 

"What  have  I  to  do  with  this  Pietistic 
scarecrow,  made  up  of  moral  and  social  con- 
ventions ?  I  am  the  true  life !  Liberty  for- 
ever !  Wickedness  is  a  word  to  scare  mon- 
keys with,  not  men !  There  is  no  other 
God  but  me !  Come,  you  sanctimonious 
hound,  I'll  make  an  end  of  you  !  Follow  my 
leader — the  old  school  game !  Do  you  know 
your  catechism  ?  '  What  is  good  ?'  Whatever 
I  like.  *  What  is  truth  ?'  Whatever  I  say. 
'What  is  purity?'  Purity!"  There  was  a 
low,  sagacious  chuckle.  "Purity,  my  dear, 
is  grace  before  meat !" 

Down  the  veranda,  through  the  door, 
along  the  hall,  into  the  bedchamber.  Dark 
as  pitch ;  but  we  know  that  the  mahogany 
bureau  stands  between  the  windows  at  the 
end  of  the  room  ;  the  candle  is  on  it ;  and  the 
other  thing  is  in  the  upper  right-hand  drawer. 


127 

He  shut  the  door  softly  behind  him,  and 
for  a  moment  stood  alert  just  within  the 
threshold,  scenting  (as  it  were)  this  way 
and  that  through  the  darkness.  Satisfied 
that  the  coast  was  clear,  he  moved  forward, 
and  his  bearing  underwent  an  odd  change. 
The  hitherto  erect  and  well -carried  figure 
seemed  to  throw  aside  its  human  conscious- 
ness as  an  irksome  burden ;  it  became  loose- 
jointed  and  ignoble ;  the  body  stooped  for- 
ward from  the  loins,  the  arms  dangled  in 
front,  the  knees  were  bent,  and  the  head 
lurched  grotesquely  on  the  neck.  He  began 
to  forge  swiftly  hither  and  thither,  with  an 
irregular,  ape-like  gait,  and  with  no  other  ap- 
parent aim  than  the  indulgence  of  a  vague 
animal  impulse.  A  meaningless  grimace 
was  set  upon  his  features,  and  from  his 
mouth  came  ever  and  anon  a  clucking  noise, 
like  that  made  by  liquid  escaping  from  a 
jug.  Mask  and  domino  are  poor  disguise 
compared  with  that  wrought  upon  the  body 
by  the  distortion  of  a  human  spirit. 


128 

The  room,  as  in  all  one-storied  West  Ind- 
ian houses,  was  ceilingless,  and  the  naked 
boards  and  rafters  of  the  roof  rose  in  a  peak 
to  the  ridge-pole.  The  windows  were  un- 
glazed  openings,  protected  by  green  jalou- 
sies with  widely  spaced  slats.  All  at  once  a 
strong  gust  of  wind  came  through  the  shut- 
ters like  a  sigh,  and  was  followed  by  the 
dash  of  heavy  raindrops  on  the  dry  shingles. 
At  the  same  moment  a  large  bat,  whether 
in  pursuit  of  an  insect  or  carried  on  the  cur- 
rent of  air,  darted  unseen  through  the  gap- 
ing slats,  and  wheeled  its  noiseless,  nervous 
flight  round  and  round  in  dizzying  circles. 

The  other  occupant  of  the  room  halted 
abruptly  in  his  lope,  and  crouched,  listening, 
with  upturned  ear. 

His  mind,  at  this  juncture,  was  like  a 
dwelling  shaken  down  by  earthquake,  in 
which  various  records  of  human  life  are 
pitched  together  in  weird  inconsequence. 
The  noisome  growths  and  reptiles  of  the 
cellar  are  mingled  with  toys  of  the  nursery 


129 

and  ornaments  of  the  drawing-room;  a 
snake  crawls  out  of  the  damask  sheets  of 
the  baby's  cradle,  and  a  toad  hops  among 
the  books  and  engravings  of  the  library ;  the 
stench  of  the  cesspool  unites  itself  with  the 
scattered  perfumes  of  the  boudoir.  The 
owner  meanwhile  stumbles,  helpless  and 
bewildered,  amidst  the  ruins,  lantern  in 
hand,  the  hovering  light  from  which  falls 
now  here,  now  there,  and  whatever  it  re- 
veals seems  for  the  moment  to  characterize 
the  whole.  So,  in  this  man,  was  the  order  of 
memory  displaced,  and  the  relation  of  states 
confused ;  and  processes  of  thought  had 
fallen  to  be  mere  impressions  stimulated 
by  the  flicker  of  chance  suggestion.  The 
results  were  fantastic. 

The  moan  of  the  wind-gust  brought  be- 
fore him  the  death  agony  of  a  man  he  had 
once  known  ;  but  the  staccato  impact  of 
the  raindrops  became  the  multitudinous 
pattering  of  innumerable  fairy  feet  scam- 
pering panic-stricken  over  the  hollow  gable. 


1 3Q 

The  sound  of  the  elfin  stampede  died  away, 
a  squad  of  belated  fugitives  hopping  hur- 
riedly in  the  rear.  Then  all  was  still  again. 

"  Fairies  !  No  wonder  they  run  ;  this  is 
no  place  for  them.  Dead  men  are  kept 
here.  They  said  the  fairies  were  dead,  too ; 
my  mother  told  me  that.  Poor  Frank ! 
what  a  cropper  he  came — from  the  fourth- 
story  window !  Vivien  is  dead,  too.  I 
killed  her,  though  she  lied  about  it.  But 
Yolande  killed  me,  but  she  won't  know  it 
till  to-morrow.  Are  you  there  ?" 

The  soft  wing  of  the  bat,  eddying  invisible 
about  him,  had  swept  his  forehead. 

"  Are  you  there,  mother  dear?  Don't  go, 
please,  mother ;  horrible  things  come  to  me 
in  the  dark.  I  shall  light  the  candle  then. 
A  gentleman  can't  cut  his  throat  in  the 
dark.  Did  you  hear  that  ?  There  is  a  man 
here  wants  to  kill  himself.  The  fairies  ran 
away.  It's  in  the  upper  right-hand  drawer ; 
low  down  on  the  left  is  the  place,  an  inch 
above  the  collar-bone.  But  we  must  have  a 


light ;  no  bungling,  you  know  !  Listen — it's 
no  dream,  I  tell  you  !  He  will  kill  me  too !" 

He  crept  warily  to  the  bureau,  and  fum- 
bled there  for  a  while.  He  found  the  match- 
box, and  hurriedly  lit  the  candle.  The  flare 
of  the  flame  dazzled  him  at  first,  but  he  felt 
for  the  razor  with  his  right  hand,  at  the 
same  time  tilting  the  toilet-mirror  so  as  to 
reflect  his  image.  He  stared  blinkingly 
into  it. 

There  are  moments  in  life  when  the  most 
appalling  sight  a  man  can  behold  is  the  like- 
ness of  himself.  Could  a  murderer  catch  a 
glimpse  of  his  own  countenance  at  the  in- 
stant his  hand  is  lifted  for  the  blow,  his 
hand  might  well  drop  paralyzed.  The 
ghastly  incongruities  of  delirium,  confound- 
ing the  innocent  child  with  the  monstrous 
suicide,  may  work  to  a  crisis  even  more  fear- 
ful. Expecting  to  see  the  one,  he  is  con- 
fronted with  the  other. 

With  a  shrill  scream  the  victim  of  himself 
dealt  a  frenzied  blow  at  the  phantom  which 


132 

grinned  forth  at  him.  The  glass  was  shat- 
tered ;  the  bat,  terrified  by  the  noise  and  be- 
wildered by  the  light,  blundered  into  the 
flame  and  extinguished  it. 

For  a  while  only  the  noise  of  quick  and 
heavy  breathing  disturbed  the  silence  of  the 
midnight  room.  Then  was  heard  the  voice, 
as  it  were,  of  a  little  boy,  quavering  out  his 
prayers  to  his  Father  in  heaven,  at  his  moth- 
er's knees.  The  sacred,  tender  words  fal- 
tered and  halted,  and  subsided  into  inartic- 
ulate murmurs,  as  of  a  child  falling  asleep. 
His  ugly  dreams  were  put  to  flight,  and 
peace  brooded  over  his  cradle. 

The  fairies  returned.  First  one,  then 
another,  alighted  upon  the  roof ;  then  came 
battalions  and  armies  of  them.  Their  myr- 
iad trampling  became  a  steady  roar  of  muf- 
fled music,  soothing  to  distracted  brain  and 
tortured  nerves.  All  night  long  they  held 
high  revel,  and  even  the  gray  ghost  of  dawn 
dispersed  them  not.  But  sin  and  death  had 
taken  flight. 


XIII 

".Vain  for  thy  lost  Flock  thy  Grief,— 
Thine  own  self  thou  art  the  Thief. 
More  than  Loss  shall  he  regain 
By  whose  Lamb  his  Wolf  is  slain." 

|HAT  day  is  this,  Thomas?" 

"  Mornin',  massa !     Dis  Friday, 
massa — yas,  sah." 

" Are  you  sure?" 

"  Oh  yes,  sah.  You  been  ve'y  sick,  massa ; 
two,  three  days — yas,  sah." 

"  Friday !  Tell  Martha  to  make  me  some 
coffee  ;  something  to  eat.  What's  that  noise 
I  hear?" 

"  Dat  de  river,  sah ;  river  down,  sah ; 
couldn't  get  no  doctor  come ;  rain  two, 
three  days,  sah  ;  say  de  bridge  gone,  massa." 

"  Friday  !     What  time  is  it,  Thomas  ?" 

"  T'ink  'bout  nine,  ten  o'clock,  massa." 


134 

"  Well,  tell  Martha  —  you  understand. 
Look  sharp,  now !" 

"  Oh  yes,  massa ;  glad  you  better,  sah — 
yas,  sah !" 

When  the  man  had  gone  Strathspey 
raised  himself  on  one  elbow  and  looked 
about  the  room.  Everything  appeared  as 
usual,  except  that  no  sunshine  fell  through 
the  windows,  which  faced  the  east.  Ah,  it 
had  been  raining,  and  was  still  cloudy.  Fri- 
day! He  was  in  bed;  had  been  ill;  certain- 
ly, he  was  weak  as  a  rag.  How  was  it  ?  His 
brain  was  like  a  barren  country,  in  which  no 
thought  would  sprout.  Tuesday — yes  ;  but 
Wednesday, Thursday?  And  this  was  Friday. 
Round  about  this  central  point  of  mystery 
his  mind  circulated  like  a  fascinated  animal. 
He  got  out  of  bed  at  length,  and,  with  as- 
tonishment at  his  physical  weakness,  made 
his  way  to  the  bureau.  No  distinct  idea 
took  him  there,  but  he  vaguely  fancied  some 
helpful  hint  might  offer  itself  in  that  neigh- 
borhood. The  looking-glass  was  broken, 


135 

and  forced  from  its  supports ;  the  fragments 
of  glass  had  been  gathered  up  and  piled  to- 
gether at  one  side.  Beside  them  lay  the  ra- 
zor without  its  case.  Its  place  was  in  the 
right-hand  drawer.  Pondering  fruitlessly, 
Strathspey  opened  this  drawer,  and  saw, 
amidst  a  confusion  of  articles,  the  envelope 
containing  Vivien's  letter.  He  seized  it  as 
a  clew,  and  dragged  himself  back  to  bed. 
Some  rose  petals  fell  out  of  it  on  the  sheet. 
Though  the  scenery  of  the  memory  is 
continuous,  only  such  passages  as  conscious- 
ness authenticated  remain  accessible  to  the 
mind.  Strathspey  could  trace  his  acts  up  to 
the  time  of  his  return  to  the  veranda  after 
changing  his  dress ;  after  that  the  reins  of 
will  had  been  wrested  from  him  by  some  il- 
legitimate agent,  and  he  had  been  driven  he 
knew  not  whither.  But  during  this  blind- 
fold career  the  bandage,  so  to  speak,  had 
once  or  twice  slipped  aside,  giving  him  a 
glimpse  of  the  situation.  Such  incoherent 
impressions,  however,  explained  nothing — 


136 

they  but  served  to  imply  some  sinister  pre- 
dicament. He  had  been  whirled  headlong 
through  the  Bottomless  Pit,  from  which 
some  influence  as  unknown  as  that  which 
had  plunged  him  thither  seemed  to  have 
snatched  him  back  alive. 

But  though  the  circumstances  escaped 
him,  the  effects  remained.  He  was  not  the 
man  he  had  been.  In  place  of  intellectual, 
he  now  had  vital  knowledge  of  human  im- 
potence and  divine  power.  The  period  of 
reasonings  was  past,  and,  like  a  child,  he 
cared  only  to  see  good  and  to  do  it.  "  I  am 
nothing — God  is  everything,"  was  the  creed 
he  felt,  and  before  it  questions  of  justice  and 
compensation  evaporated  like  mist  in  sun- 
shine. 

Desert  implies  reward  ;  but  how  should  he 
who  of  himself  can  do  nothing  be  rewarded? 
God  alone  works  in  man,  and  pays  Himself 
no  wages.  But  though  He  does  not  reward, 
all  is  His  gift,  for  it  is  the  gift  of  life,  which 
is  Love.  Over  against  the  heavenly  fulness 


137 

stands  that  void  of  death  which  is  man. 
The  fulness  yearns  to  give  itself  to,  to  be 
swallowed  up  and  disappear  in,  the  void  and 
become  as  the  void's  own ;  so  that  while  the 
fulness  alone  is,  the  void  alone  may  appear 
to  be :  for  thus  to  do  is  the  genius  of  love. 
Death  cannot  earn,  but  it  can  receive,  life ; 
and  only  when  it  insanely  prefers  the  death 
which  it  is  to  the  life  which  would  kill  that 
death  is  eager  heaven  kept  waiting  at  its 
sullen  gates  and  the  creative  moment  de- 
layed. 

Nothing  final  happens  here,  because  mor- 
tal man  is  equipoised  between  good  and 
evil,  and  may  to  the  last  freely  incline  either 
way.  Strathspey,  if  he  would,  might  still 
descend  from  the  hard-won  aerial  turrets  to 
the  sensual  cellars  of  his  house,  and  forget 
in  earthly  gluttony  the  apocalyptic  vision. 
His  best  guarantee  of  safety  was  his  recog- 
nition of  this  truth,  and,  as  he  lay  musing, 
he  told  himself  that  he  had  no  strength  in 
himself  to  resist  temptation,  and  humbly 


138 

hoped  God  would  abate  the  power  of  the 
enemy. 

Meanwhile  he  shunned  forecasts  and  casu- 
istry, and  was  content  to  do  what  lay  next 
his  hand.  As  the  sick  man  dreads  poison, 
so  did  he  dread  to  disguise  or  in  any  way 
manipulate  the  truth:  let  it  flow  uncontam- 
inated  by  human  prudence  or  compassion. 
Whatever  it  destroyed  was  well  lost :  noth- 
ing else  could  bestow  its  blessings.  He  that 
trusted  to  its  eternal  current,  though  losing 
all  else,  would  preserve  what  of  his  cargo 
was  of  avail  in  the  world  of  things  incor- 
ruptible. 

When  Thomas  came  back  with  the  coffee 
his  master  said,  "  Have  the  mare  saddled 
and  at  the  door  in  half  an  hour." 

"Yes,  massa.  Beg  pard'n,  massa  —  you 
goin'  tak'  a  ride?" 

"  Why,  I  think  of  it,  Thomas.  It  would 
need  a  worse  illness  than  I  have  had  to  pre- 
vent me  sitting  a  horse.  I  was  brought  up 
on  horses,  Thomas.  Don't  be  uneasy." 


139 

"Yes,  massa.  Ain't  no  trouble  'bout  sit- 
tin'  de  ho'se,  sah.  It's  de  roads.  Dey's 
mighty  bad  dis  mornin';  don'  t'ink  yo'  git 
ve'y  far  along  dis  mornin',  massa  ;  no,  sir." 

"  Oh,  that's  the  trouble,  is  it  ?  Yes,  I  re- 
member now ;  you  said  the  bridge  had  been 
carried  away,  didn't  you  ?" 

"  Oh  yes,  massa." 

"  Well,  I'll  have  to  find  some  other  way  of 
getting  across,  then.  I  can  ride  up  to  the 
place  the  river  starts  from  if  nothing  else 
will  do.  You  know,  Thomas,  where  there's 
a  will  there's  a  way.  Tell  Martha  the  coffee 
is  very  good.  I  feel  much  better.  Be  off 
with  you  now !" 

Thomas  went  away  with  obvious  misgiv- 
ings. He  knew  more  than  his  master  about 
the  effect  upon  tropical  rivers  of  tropical 
rains;  but  he  had  said  all  he  could.  While 
aggressive  to  maintain  against  all  comers 
that  his  buckra  could  outride  any  other 
white  man  on  the  island  and  accomplish  im- 
possible feats  without  trying,  yet  when  it 


came  to  crossing  a  furious  torrent  thirty 
yards  wide  and  as  many  feet  in  depth  with- 
out the  aid  of  a  bridge,  he  permitted  himself 
some  private  doubts.  He  confided  them  to 
the  mare  only,  whom  he  prepared  with  es- 
pecial care  for  her  journey,  finally  leading 
her  round  to  the  front  with  a  despondent 
air,  as  if  he  feared  never  to  enjoy  another 
opportunity  to  lavish  on  her  those  atten- 
tions which  she  was  not  more  blessed  in 
receiving  than  he  in  bestowing.  Nor  was  he 
comforted  by  the  evident  impatience  of  the 
beautiful  creature  to  be  off.  She  danced 
along  with  so  light  a  hoof  that  one  could 
almost  believe  she  could  cross  a  river  dry- 
shod  ;  and  she  tossed  up  her  delicate  head, 
as  much  as  to  say  that  air  was  her  proper 
sphere  and  she  condescended  to  earth  only 
out  of  regard  for  etiquette.  She  and  her 
rider — Thomas  sadly  reflected — were  a  pair 
afraid  of  nothing,  and  never  in  such  good 
spirits  as  when  about  to  perpetrate  some 
such  monstrous  indiscretion  as  this. 


Hi 

Strathspey,  however,  was  far  from  regard- 
ing as  a  perilous  escapade  the  present  expe- 
dition. His  habit  of  serio-comic  dialogue 
with  the  old  darky  had  led  him  to  humor 
the  latter ;  but  he  had  never  seen  a  tropic 
river  in  flood,  and  knew  not  what  it  por- 
tended. He  had  forded  streams  in  other 
lands,  and  feared  not  getting  his  girths  wet. 
But  in  fact  he  wasted  few  thoughts  on  the 
matter,  his  mind  being  bent  on  Yolande, 
not  as  forecasting  their  interview,  but  as  a 
plant  struggles  through  the  soil  to  the  light 
by  the  instinct  of  its  life.  To  stand  idle  was 
not  his  cue,  and  in  order  to  know  what  were 
best  be  done,  and  how  to  do  it,  he  must  see 
her,  if  only  to  agree  with  her  to  part.  What- 
ever else  was  obscure,  at  least  they  must  un- 
derstand each  other.  Until  this  colloquy 
had  taken  place  all  was  at  pause. 

After  dressing  slowly  he  felt  exhausted,  as 
with  a  day's  hard  work.  Those  fifty  or  sixty 
hours  of  illness  had  robbed  him  of  the  pith 
of  years.  But  his  mind  was  abnormally 


142 

lucid  and  sensitive  to  impressions.  He  had 
had  a  similar  experience  in  childhood.  Un- 
til he  had  entered  upon  the  athletic  life 
which  he  had  kept  up  through  college  and 
never  laid  aside,  he  had  been  nervous  and 
delicate,  suffering  much  from  noises  and 
earthly  frictions  of  all  kinds.  He  had  per- 
ceptions which  none  round  him  understood 
or  shared,  and  which  were  far  from  welcome 
to  himself.  For  example,  he  would  see  his 
companions  environed  with  a  sphere,  dark, 
bright,  or  colored,  and  attractive  or  repul- 
sive, as  the  case  might  be.  These  airy  radia- 
tions or  envelopes  determined  his  personal 
likes  and  dislikes,  often  in  an  inconvenient 
manner.  Sometimes,  again,  in  the  midst  of 
indifferent  talk  or  occupation,  he  would  sud- 
denly see  places  at  a  distance  and  persons 
whom  he  knew  doing  things  there,  later  in- 
formation uniformly  confirming  the  correct- 
ness of  these  visions.  More  rarely  he  would 
be  transported  in  spirit  to  scenes  strange  to 
him,  which  he  had  no  means  of  identifying ; 


H3 

and  occasionally  in  seasons  of  solitude  and 
reverie  he  had  beheld  beings  and  places 
which  he  felt  to  be  not  of  this  earth,  though 
they  had  a  perfect  reality  of  their  own. 

All  this  had  disturbed  his  immature  mind, 
and  he  had  concealed  it  from  his  fellows 
like  a  sin,  lest  they  should  ridicule  him.  By 
nature  he  had  not  been  fond  of  exercise  ; 
but  he  had  given  himself  with  ardor  to  out- 
door exercise  as  soon  as  he  was  told  that  it 
would  "  cure  him  of  his  nonsense,"  and  the 
prescription  had  not  failed.  The  disease  (or 
faculty)  had  not  returned  till  now,  when  for 
the  first  time  his  physical  stamina  had  col- 
lapsed. As  he  buttoned  the  belt  of  his  Nor- 
folk jacket  he  saw,  through  twelve  inches  of 
brick  and  plaster  and  a  hedge  of  pimentos, 
Thomas  stealthily  attach  an  Obeah  charm 
to  the  mare's  surcingle  as  a  security  against 
disaster;  and  while  putting  on  his  cap  and 
taking  his  riding-crop  from  its  hook  on  the 
wall  he  caught  himself  muttering,  "  The 
cocoa-palm  by  the  gate  will  fall  as  I  pass," 


U4 

repeating  the  words  over  and  over  mechan- 
ically, as  a  child  memorizes  its  lesson  by  rote. 
He  shook  his  head,  laughed,  and  went  out. 

The  mare  became  all  palpitating  springs 
and  electric  vibrations  as  her  master  gath- 
ered the  reins  in  his  left  hand  and  put  his 
foot  in  the  stirrup.  When  he  was  seated  he 
turned  quietly  to  the  old  groom,  who,  with 
his  lean  black  arms  crossed  over  his  breast, 
was  ducking  and  bobbing  and  covertly  re- 
joicing at  having  slipped  a  curb  between  the 
teeth  of  Fate,  and  said  : 

"  Thomas,  take  that  thing  out." 
"Yes,  massa.  .  .  .  Begpa'd'n,  massa?"  fal- 
tered Thomas,  knowing  that  it  was  impossi- 
ble Strathspey  could  have  seen  the  "charm," 
which,  indeed,  was  nothing  but  the  third  toe 
of  a  chicken  wrapped  up  in  a  bit  of  rag  cut 
from  the  shift  of  a  suckling  babe  and  se- 
cured with  a  piece  of  curly  wool  reft  from 
the  head  of  a  bride  just  before  she  crossed 
her  husband's  threshold,  and  was  thrust  un- 
der the  surcingle  on  the  right-hand  side, 


145 

where  it  must  be  quite  invisible.  Remem- 
bering this,  Thomas  rapidly  reflected  that 
his  act  could  not  have  been  detected,  and 
determined  to  brazen  it  out.  The  babe  of 
the  shift  was  less  innocent  than  Thomas 
looked. 

"  Take  it  out  at  once !"  Strathspey  repeat- 
ed, repressing  his  smile  and  forcing  his  brows 
to  frown.  "  For  shame,  sir!  Your  minister 
shall  know  of  this.  And  don't  you  know 
that  folks  whose  lives  are  saved  by  heathen 
charms  are  bound  to  lose  their  souls  to  the 
devil?" 

"  Massa'Thaspey,"  replied  the  negro,  sad- 
ly, removing  the  offending  trinket,  "  a  gen'- 
mun  like  yo',  sah,  dat  sees  t'ings  dat  can't  be 
seed,  he  ain't  in  no  danger  anyway.  But  de 
poo'  mare,  she  ain't  got  no  soul  for  de  deb'l 
to  take ;  so  I  t'ought  no  ha'm  to  save  her 
be'n'  drownded,  sah — dat  all." 

"  She  shall  come  back,  whatever  happens 
to  me,"  answered  the  master,  with  a  kindly 
laugh  ;  and  he  rode  away. 


XIV 

As  the  Waves  are  not  the  Sea, 
Bole  and  Branches  not  the  Tree, 
So  of  Thee  I  naught  descry 
Save  what  Self  and  Sense  deny." 

,T  was  a  morning  such  as  is  seen  only 
among  tropical  mountains  in  the 
rainy  season.  The  atmosphere  was  steaming 
with  magic  and  mystery.  Pale  mists  were 
drawn  across  the  profiles  of  the  peaks  and 
again  snatched  aside,  as  the  diaphanous 
gauzes  of  Oriental  dancers  now  reveal, 
now  hide,  their  dusky  undulations.  Here 
a  wilderness  of  cloud  brightened  intolerably 
in  a  white  tide  of  sunlight,  and  yonder  a 
foggy  shield  was  lifted  between  the  be- 
holder and  the  source  of  light,  rimmed  with 
splendor  and  radiating  glory.  At  times  the 


147 

rider  seemed  to  float  above  silent  oceans  of 
fleecy  vapor,  and  anon  through  the  centre  of 
the  opaline  whirlpool  would  appear  dewy 
valleys  reaching  far  down  into  the  sunlight 
of  a  warmer  world,  or  glimpses  of  romantic 
heights  clothed  with  fern  and  crowned  with 
palm.  Vistas  of  remote  defiles  gleamed  out 
and  vanished.  Once  a  white-walled  dwell- 
ing, the  culmination  of  a  pyramid  of  distant 
verdure,  shone  forth  isolated,  as  if  seen 
through  an  opening  in  the  sky.  In  lonely 
passes  the  long,  sweet  double  whistle  of  the 
solitary  filtered  through  the  hush,  intoning 
the  melodious  pathos  of  unheeded  nature. 
It  seemed  at  last  as  if  the  solid  earth  were 
hastily  remaking  herself  after  having  been 
dissipated  overnight,  and,  being  rashly  sur- 
prised before  her  toilet  was  completed,  had 
not  yet  donned  all  her  garments  or  even 
condensed  herself  from  the  atmospheric 
back  into  the  substantial  state.  Nothing 
would  get  in  its  right  place.  She  tried  a  val- 
ley here,  a  mountain  there ;  no ;  then  let 


148 

them  change  places;  but  that  was  hardly 
satisfactory  either!  And  here  was  high 
noon  at  hand  and  all  those  seas,  archipela- 
goes, and  continents  still  in  disarray  !  "  Ah  !" 
panted  the  lovely  planet,  "  if  ever  I  get  my 
equator  round  my  waist  and  my  snow- cap 
on  my  head  again,  never  more  will  I  resolve 
myself  into  my  elements !"  Unlike  some 
more  sophisticated  beauties,  she  did  not 
know  that  there  was  in  her  disorder  some- 
thing yet  more  enchanting  than  in  her  pre- 
cise attire. 

Strathspey  rode  at  a  foot  pace.  The  pri- 
vate road  on  which  he  was  journeying  was, 
like  most  private  roads  in  the  island,  steep 
and  rugged,  and  the  rains  of  the  past  days 
and  nights  had  brought  into  prominence  all 
its  thinly  disguised  evil  of  sharp  stones  and 
treacherous  crevices.  Moreover,  he  had 
given  himself  time  and  to  spare.  Four 
o'clock  was  the  earliest  hour  at  which  he 
could  present  himself  at  his  destination. 
He  meant  to  linger  by  the  way  and  prepare 


149 

himself,  so  far  as  he  might,  for  the  interview. 
Perhaps,  too,  he  might  have  to  make  a  de- 
tour in  order  to  arrive  below.  And  though 
the  air  and  scene  revived  him,  he  was  in 
no  trim  for  hard  riding.  He  must  husband 
what  strength  was  left  him. 

Momentous  though  the  coming  interview 
must  be,  Strathspey  noticed,  not  without 
surprise,  that  his  mind  and  heart  were  singu- 
larly free  from  preoccupation  and  anxiety. 
He  ascribed  this  serenity  to  his  physical 
weakness,  which  is  apt  to  let  cares  smooth 
themselves  out  for  lack  of  energy  to  exas- 
perate them.  But  he  was  happy  as  well  as 
calm.  Not  that  he  hoped  for  any  specific 
temporal  felicity ;  rather  did  he  feel  a  pre- 
sentiment that  what  he  had  of  late  so  pas- 
sionately craved  was  not  to  be  his.  But  he 
was  happy  because  he  had  ceased  to  aspire 
to  personal  gratification.  His  eyes  were 
turned  away  from  that  petty  complex  of  de- 
sires and  fears  that  he  called  himself  towards 
a  larger  self,  in  which  he  now  discerned  the 


veritable  contours  of  his  human  nature.  No 
harm  could  befall  this  larger  self,  for  it  dwelt 
beyond  the  reach  of  mortal  vicissitude ;  nor 
need  it  strive  after  blessings,  since  it  was  the 
form  which  real  blessing  spontaneously  as- 
sumes. 

He  loved  Yolande  not  less,  but  to  a  height 
and  depth  far  greater  than  before ;  but  the 
question  of  winning  or  losing  her  no  longer 
occupied  him.  Already  was  she  his  in  the 
sense  that  the  best  he  was  capable  of  was 
his ;  and  she  was  not  his  in  the  sense  that 
no  one  can  claim  ownership  in  immortal 
treasure,  but  must  be  content  to  cleave  to  it 
as  to  a  saving  and  uplifting  hand.  On  such 
high  terms  the  personal  equation  is  either 
cancelled  or  survives  but  as  the  memory  of 
a  superseded  expedient. 

Although,  therefore,  she  was  his  constant 
thought,  he  concerned  himself  not  as  to  what 
he  should  say  to  her  or  she  reply.  Free 
and  glad  were  his  meditations ;  he  and  she 
were  parts  of  a  whole  whose  orbed  complete- 


ness  could  not  be  marred  by  accidents  of 
time  and  space ;  though  zenith,  nadir,  and 
all  the  ages  intervened,  the  curve  of  their 
arc  was  not  distraught ;  it  was  secure  as  the 
rainbow,  because,  like  that,  not^  human  will, 
but  heavenly  law,  was  its  warrant. 

He  found  a  new  delight,  as  he  rode  along, 
in  watching  the  beautiful  fantasia  going  on 
around  him.  Grown  people  are  so  used  to 
burden  themselves  with  the  gloom  of  their 
mental  scenery  that  external  nature  hardly 
penetrates  them.  But  now,  to  Strathspey, 
these  shadows  and  sunbursts,  these  heights 
and  dells,  trees,  birds,  and  all  other  particu- 
lars, became  not  visible  only,  but  transpar- 
ent :  answering  to  truths  and  affections  in- 
herent in  himself,  and  thus  forming  a  living 
language — an  eternal  and  palpable  Word  of 
God.  Nature  was  the  contents  of  Man  pro- 
jected by  his  Creator  upon  the  screen  of 
sense,  as  the  hues  of  the  spectrum  are  the 
analysis  of  the  ray  of  white  light.  Nature 
was  thus  because  Man  was  so ;  a  change  in 


152 

the  latter  would  modify  the  former.  The  ma- 
terial fixity  was  not  the  reality,  but  merely 
attested  the  constancy  of  the  divine-human 
relation. 

What  health  and  refreshment  are  in  the 
outward  look !  What  a  transformation  is 
wrought  in  these  squalid  little  interiors 
when  the  windows  are  thrown  open,  the 
doors  lifted  from  their  rusty  hinges,  and 
the  sun  and  breeze  invited  within  !  In  they 
come,  laden  with  bird  song  and  flower  fra- 
grance ;  the  dingy  old  pictures  that  once 
seemed  so  fine,  the  tawdry  decoration,  the 
smirking  furniture,  the  straitening  walls 
and  stifling  ceilings — how  poor  are  all  these 
painful  devices  and  accumulations  now ! 
What  barriers  do  we  build  against  heavenly 
influx  ;  in  what  cellars  do  we  cower  from  it ; 
with  what  snaky  twistings  do  we  wriggle 
away  from  it !  What  labors  of  Hercules 
do  we  not  urge  to  preserve  in  our  hearts 
that  dull  pain  created  by  the  hopeless  strug- 
gle to  stand  on  the  summit  of  our  own  mole- 


153 

hill  and  believe  it  the  crown  and  centre  of 
the  world ! 

The  pen  or  estate  appertaining  to  Strath- 
spey's dwelling  was  of  no  small  extent,  and 
the  winding  road  which  traversed  it  was 
some  two  miles  in  length.  It  crept  this  way 
and  that,  avoiding  a  rugged  spur  of  the  hill 
there,  here  skirting  the  brink  of  a  deep  gully 
or  trench  in  the  crumbly  soil,  twenty  or 
thirty  feet  down,  in  the  usually  dry  chan- 
nel of  which  now  rushed  a  turbid  torrent. 
Sometimes  it  passed  through  groves  of  eb- 
ony and  logwood ;  sometimes  it  scaled  a 
naked  mass  of  rock,  or  stole  beneath  the 
leafy  arches  of  a  dusky  dingle.  A  gray 
mongoose  undulated  across  the  path ;  dull 
cattle  stared  stupidly  at  the  rider  as  he 
passed ;  a  black  pickaninny  with  a  huge  bas- 
ket of  vegetables  on  its  head  pattered  by 
him  with  round  shining  eyes  and  a  chirp  of 
"  Marnin',  massa !"  At  length  he  thread- 
ed a  plantation  of  bananas,  drooping  their 
broad  green  banners,  and  came  in  sight  of 


154 

the  gate  of  the  enclosure,  at  the  foot  of  a  de- 
clivity. 

Beyond  the  gate  the  high  road  was  visible 
to  the  right  and  left  for  a  distance  of  a  quar- 
ter of  a  mile  or  more.  On  the  hither  side  of 
the  entrance  grew  a  tall  cocoa-palm,  a  land- 
mark far  and  near;  for  these  trees  are  sel- 
dom seen  on  the  heights  of  the  island,  and 
bear  no  edible  fruit  so  far  from  the  sea. 
The  palm  stood  on  the  verge  of  a  little  ter- 
race a  few  feet  in  height,  now  almost  sub- 
merged in  the  waters  of  a  pond  which  had 
been  formed  there  by  the  rains. 

It  made  a  pretty  picture ;  the  towering 
tree  reflected  in  the  shining  mirror.  Strath- 
spey glanced  at  it  as  he  guided  his  mare 
down  the  awkward  footing  of  the  slope,  but 
did  not  recall  at  the  moment  his  recent 
ominous  prevision  of  it.  He  was  asking 
himself  whether  he  would  be  able  to  open 
the  gate  with  his  riding-crop,  or  whether  he 
would  have  to  dismount  for  that  purpose. 
He  halted  a  moment  to  look  up  and  down 


155 

the  stretch  of  high-road,  should  perchance 
some  errant  darky  be  within  hail.  No  hu- 
man creature  met  his  eyes. 

"  If  I'd  had  my  wits  about  me,  I'd  have 
chartered  that  little  pickaninny  with  the  bas- 
ket," said  he  to  himself.  "As  it  is,  I'm 
afraid  I'll  have  trouble.  The  mare  is  as 
restive  as  a  water-beetle.  Cusha,  old  girl ! 
steady!" 

He  went  forward  again,  patting  her  neck, 
while  she  capered  fantastically  sidewise,  her 
quick,  sharp  ears  now  pricked  forward,  now 
folded  back  like  an  angry  kitten's.  She 
was  not  wont  to  behave  thus.  Strathspey 
laughed  a  little.  "Cusha,  Cusha!  Don't 
you  love  me  any  more,  because  I've  been 
ill  ?" 

They  were  at  the  foot  of  the  slope.  Five- 
and-twenty  yards  more  would  bring  them  to 
the  gate.  The  palm  stood  less  than  half 
that  distance  this  side  of  it,  on  the  right. 
The  footing  here,  though  slippery  with  small 
plashets  of  water,  was  stony  and  firm. 


156 

Cusha  danced  forward,  three  hoofs   off  the 
ground  at  a  time. 

A  little  gust  of  wind  came  up  in  haste 
from  the  west.  It  had  nothing  to  do  ;  it 
tossed  itself  among  the  mighty  fronds  of 
the  great  palm.  They  waved  slightly,  sibi- 
lating to  one  another.  No  further  impulse 
was  needed.  The  palm  bent  noiselessly 
towards  the  road,  its  tough  old  roots,  long 
since  undermined  and  unfettered  by  the 
subtle  waters,  softly  slipping  from  their 
moorings  in  the  liquefied  soil.  As  the 
straight  stem  stooped,  still  retaining  its  stark 
rigidity,  its  impetus  increased.  It  was  timed 
to  strike  the  earth  at  the  same  instant  that 
the  horse  and  rider  intersected  the  plane 
of  its  arc.  Horse  and  rider — the  latter,  at 
least,  totally  unconscious  of  death  so  near 
and  sudden,  came  on  to  meet  the  appoint- 
ment. 

"  Angus  !  the  tree  !     Leap  for  your  life  !" 

That  voice,  calling  him  for  the  first  time 

by  name,  and  never  heard  till  now  above  the 


157 

gentle  modulations  of  conversation,  was 
recognized  in  every  nerve  of  his  body  and 
instinct  of  his  soul,  and  searched  his  heart 
like  the  silver  summons  of  a  trumpet.  It 
kindled  him  from  head  to  heel.  He  glanced 
not  aside  to  see  the  danger,  whose  sweeping 
onset  he  felt,  not  saw.  His  spurs  pricked 
Cusha's  satin  sides.  She  knew  the  lift  of 
the  rein,  the  impulse  of  the  sharply  mut- 
tered word.  Two  short  onward  springs  she 
made,  measuring  her  distance,  her  elastic 
muscles  coiling  like  tempered  steel ;  then, 
light  and  deft  as  a  cat,  she  rose  erect, 
spurned  the  earth,  and  flew  forward.  The 
margin  was  narrow.  Ere  her  black  hoofs 
touched  ground  again,  on  the  farther  side 
of  the  gate,  the  giant  flail  of  the  palm-tree 
smote  the  road  behind  her,  grazing  her  fleet 
heels  in  its  descent.  Spirit  of  Antaeus, 
what  a  blow !  But  it  was  dealt  a  fraction  of 
a  second  too  late. 

Strathspey    patted    her    neck,    his    eyes 
sparkling.     And  there,  on  a  wonderful  white 


158 

horse,  erect  and  joyous,  her  face  radiant 
with  triumph  and  love,  and  flushing  with 
immortal  youth,  her  eyes  greeting  him  as 
might  an  angel's  greet  her  lover  new  come 
to  Paradise,  was — Yolande  ! 


XV 

Not  the  Diamond,  but  its  Light — 
Not  the  Arrow,  but  its  flight — 
Love,  and  not  the  Lover — are 
Beauty's  soul  and  Avatar." 

sun  dilated  and  sent  forth  a 
mightier  effulgence  ;  the  landscape 
expanded  and  assumed  more  exquisite  pro- 
portions ;  its  hues  were  soft  as  air  and  bright 
as  jewels.  The  blue  of  the  sky  won  you 
like  the  depth  of  loving  eyes,  wooing  you  to 
gaze  deeper  and  deeper,  indrawing  you  for- 
ever through  warm  abysses  of  sun-shot  space 
towards  the  sources  of  the  unseen  stars.  Up 
climbed  snowy  bastions  and  pinnacles  of 
cloud,  height  above  height,  moulded  in 
stately  terraces  and  shining  caves,  taking 
the  breath  with  tender  miracles  of  grandeur  ; 


i6o 

poised  on  coigns  of  vantage  angelic  spirits 
seemed  to  stand,  robed  in  the  fleece  of  rain- 
bows. The  atmosphere  was  tremulous  with 
waitings  of  faint  music,  distant  choruses  of 
birds  of  Eden  ;  perfumes,  aromas  of  young 
love,  the  breathing  soul  of  flower-beds  of 
Paradise,  distilled  in  drops  of  happiness  into 
the  heart.  Paeans  of  pure  life  re-echoed  ev- 
erywhere ;  you  could  almost  hear  the  sap 
humming  in  the  trees,  whose  stirring  leaves 
.uttered  delicate  syllables  of  vegetable  felic- 
ity. There  were  beautiful  animals  in  the 
coverts,  gliding  beneath  overarching  sprays, 
standing  at  gaze  with  spirited  heads  and 
shining  eyes ;  peeping  through  windows  of 
verdure ;  rustling  unseen  through  serried 
stems  of  nodding  lilies.  Humming-birds 
broke  out  on  all  sides,  like  flashes  of  the 
prism  caught  in  mid-air  and  incarnated  ;  and 
hollow  cups  and  curving  trumpets  of  flowers, 
heavy  with  honey,  were  created  on  the  in- 
stant to  feed  them.  Two  of  these  tiny  ex- 
quisites of  the  air  came  and  hovered  round 


Yolande's  face,  as  if  seeking  to  become  pen- 
dants of  her  ear-rings. 

The  smooth  white  road,  glistening  like 
crystal,  wound  away  along  the  hill-sides,  now 
seen,  now  lost,  receding  into  distances  of 
misty  chrysoprase  and  sapphire,  passing 
over  slender  bridges  that  suspended  their 
gleaming  arches  across  purple  ravines,  yon- 
der clambering  venturously  aloft  to  the  ivory 
ramparts  and  sparkling  casements  of  fairy 
castles  gathered  in  the  zenith.  Downwards 
again  it  ran  through  shimmering  valleys 
towards  the  tinted  levels  of  the  dreaming 
plain,  past  shadowed  hamlets  and  clustered 
villages,  onwards  towards  the  enchanted 
city  that  lay  twinkling  and  palpitating  in 
golden  haze  beside  the  azure  reaches  of  the 
everlasting  sea. 

Did  Strathspey  see  all  these  things? 
There  are  states  of  the  soul  in  which  percep- 
tion is  omnipresent  and  paramount  without 
effort ;  sight  becomes  emotion,  and  emotion 
sight.  He  looked  only  at  Yolande,  and  all 


162 

these  things  were  added  unto  him.  She  ir- 
radiated the  world  around  her;  or  that 
world  was  she — the  secularization,  so  to  say, 
of  her  beauty,  her  nobility,  her  purity,  truth, 
and  goodness.  When  love  has  created  heav- 
en in  the  heart  it  is  not  strange  that  we 
should  seem  girt  with  Paradise.  We  do  not 
need  to  examine  it  with  an  inventory ;  we 
know  that  it  must  be  there. 

But  surely  Yolande  herself  appeared  more 
than  mortal  this  morning.  Strathspey  could 
not  have  told  in  what  point  she  seemed 
fairer,  sweeter,  more  immortally  alive  and 
brimming  with  lovely  energy  than  when  he 
saw  her  last ;  but  so  it  was.  Was  it  merely 
that  he  saw  her  in  clearer  light  ?  In  truth, 
he  had  never  known  an  atmosphere  so  trans- 
lucent as  this  they  now  breathed ;  it  was 
more  than  clear — it  was  luminous;  it  was 
aerial  diamond.  In  its  embrace  material 
substance  sparkled  with  inherent  life  ;  there 
was  nothing  dead  in  the  world.  Yolande, 
sitting  there  on  her  wonderful  horse,  was  not 


changed.  If  she  looked  more  beautiful,  it 
was  only  because  he  saw  her  better  ;  the  af- 
ternoon and  evening  shadows  of  her  veranda, 
down  in  the  lower  land,  had  impeded  his 
vision.  And  as  he  saw  her  more  distinctly, 
so  was  his  insight  into  her  nature  clarified, 
as  if  the  eyes  of  his  body  and  of  his  in- 
telligence were  identical.  The  meeting  of 
her  glance  with  his  had  almost  the  effect  of 
speech — or  had  they  already  actually  spoken? 
The  joyful  surprise  which  his  leap  into  her 
unexpected  presence  had  given  him  made 
him  doubtful  whether  or  not  he  had  observed 
the  forms  of  greeting.  Had  he  even  thanked 
her  for  having  saved  his  life  ? 

Hereupon  Yolande  laughed.  "  You  were 
asleep,  and  I  woke  you,"  said  she.  "  Is  not 
this  glorious?  See  what  a  world  your  com- 
ing has  made  for  us  !" 

"  If  it  were  less  glorious  I  should  think  I 
was  still  asleep,  and  dreaming  it,"  said  he. 
"  But  I  could  never  dream  anything  like 
this.  And  you  are  here !" 


164 

"  When  you  bade  me  good-night,  down 
there,  I  promised  myself  I  would  ride  to 
meet  you,  and  give  you  a  surprise."  She 
paused  a  moment  and  then  added,  while  her 
face  lightened  with  a  smile,  "  I  have  been 
with  you  longer  than  you  think  ;  you  did 
not  recognize  me  till  now.  My  beloved,  I 
shall  always  be  where  you  are !" 

"  Was  I  so  ill  as  that  ?  And  you  came  to 
me !" 

Was  it  possible  that  she  had  tended  him  in 
his  sickness?  Why  had  they  not  told  him? 

"You  did  not  know  me,  because  you 
didn't  know  yourself,"  she  went  on.  "  It 
was  all  dark.  But  it's  over  now,  and  you  are 
well,  and  all  is  well — and  right !  It  was 
never  so  bad  as  you  thought  it  was.  And 
oh,  my  love,  I  love  you  so  much  more  since 
it  is  all  cleared  up !  That  secret  shut  your 
heart  so  I  could  not  get  into  it,  and  yet  I 
didn't  know  I  was  shut  out.  But  now — 
there  is  no  tiniest  corner  or  nook  in  your 
whole  heart  in  which  I  am  not !" 


Strathspey  held  his  breath. 

So  she  knew  all ;  in  his  delirium  he  had 
uncovered  the  truth  before  her ;  and  the  idea 
of  forgiving  him  had  not  so  much  as  entered 
her  head — she  simply  loved  him  more  than 
ever !  Her  eyes,  in  which  happiness  shone 
like  a  star,  told  him  that.  He  had  been  sick 
almost  to  death  in  body  and  soul;  but  if  she 
could,  without  shrinking,  enter  his  heart  and 
welcome  him  to  hers,  he  must  be  sane  and 
sound  again.  How  had  he  been  healed  ? 
"  It  was  no  thanks  to  me — none  of  my  do- 
ing !"  he  thought,  with  a  strange  joy.  As  the 
leper  rose  up  clean,  as  Lazarus  came  forth 
alive  in  his  grave-clothes,  so  from  the  ashes 
of  pride  and  self-sufficiency  had  the  Lord, 
Who  still  walked  the  earth  in  mercy,  kindled 
in  him  a  new  life,  and  from  the  abysm  of  evil 
fate  restored  him  to  the  freshness  and  morn- 
ing of  strength. 

"  All  I  can  do  is  to  say,  *  Thank  God  !'  I 
deserve  nothing  and  I  get  everything,"  he 
said,  bending  over  under  pretence  of  adjust- 


i66 

ing  his  stirrup.  "  Seems  to  me,"  he  went  on, 
trying  to  clear  his  voice,  "  the  only  thanks 
God  will  take  is  willingness  to  receive  some- 
thing more  from  Him.  Of  course,  I  know 
there  can  be  no  ratio  between  Him  and  me ; 
still,  a  man  can't  help  wishing  he  could  do 
something." 

"  Why,  beloved,"  said  Yolande,  with  glow- 
ing face,  and  a  voice  soft  as  dew,  "  there  is  a 
ratio.  He  meets  us  in  our  nature,  which  He 
created,  and  veils  Himself  in  it,  so  that  we 
may  come  near  to  Him.  It  is  because  He 
is  there  that  we  love  each  other,  for  Creation 
is  love,  and  love  needs  love  in  return.  And 
when  we  love  each  other  we  thank  Him,  for 
loving  is  doing  His  will." 

Strathspey  looked  at  her  sitting  on  her 
white  horse,  stately  and  sweet  as  a  flower. 
The  sunlight  rested  on  her  pearl-gray  habit, 
with  facings  of  white  silk  ;  the  breeze  stirred 
the  plume  of  white  owl's  feathers  on  her  hat ; 
she  was  so  humanly  beautiful — and  yet  there 
was  something  unearthly  about  her.  He 


i67 

felt  a  sudden  fear  lest  she  dwelt  in  a  sphere 
other  than  his,  and  that  never  would  he  be 
able  to  reach  or  comprehend  her.  Stronger 
than  death  must  be  the  love  that  would  hold 
him  to  her  height.  If  he  were  to  lose  her 
now ! 

As  if  divining  what  passed  in  his  mind, 
she  smiled  with  such  comfort  and  assurance 
that  his  courage  revived,  like  a  soldier  sore 
beset  who  sees  help  at  hand. 

"  Why  are  you  troubled  ?  I  really  believe 
you're  afraid  to  be  happy,  sir  !  You  needn't 
be  ;  it's  what  we  were  made  for." 

He  laughed.  "  I  should  feel  safer,  though, 
if  I  could  go  off  and  fight  a  giant  somewhere, 
like  those  old  knight-errants.  I'm  like  the 
man  in  the  parable,  without  a  wedding  gar- 
ment." 

Yolande  gave  him  one  of  her  slow,  fath- 
omless looks. 

"  I  prayed  the  Lord  we  might  meet  like 
this,  and  He  permitted  it,"  she  said,  in  an 
inward  tone.  "  I  thought  you'd  be  glad  to 


i68 

know,  to  have  seen  for  yourself,  how  it  is 
with  me  here.  You've  had  so  much  unhap- 
piness,  my  own  beloved  !" 

Something  in  her  look  and  voice  warned 
him ;  he  lifted  his  head  with  the  masculine 
alertness  characteristic  of  him. 

"There's  to  be  a  giant,  then?  What  is 
it  ?  I  can  fight  him  !" 

She  kept  her  eyes  unswervingly  upon  him, 
as  if  to  supplement  his  courage  with  hers. 
"A  small  giant,  who  will  turn  out  a  friend 
in  disguise.  All  you  have  to  do  is  to  be- 
lieve that  I  am  yours  arid  love  you." 

He  laughed  again. 

"Isn't  that  too  easy?" 

She  stroked  the  silken  mane  of  her  horse 
thoughtfully. 

"  Do  you  believe  enough  in  me  not  to  be 
anxious  while  we  are  together  to-day  ?  Will 
you  be  content  with  my  saying  that  I  am 
your  Yolande,  and  I  love  you  forever?" 

The  memory  came  back  to  him  with  a 
surge  of  passionate  tenderness  of  that  mo- 


ment  on  the  veranda  when,  with  her  lips  on 
his,  she  had  spoken  those  words  into  his 
heart. 

"  I'm  content,"  he  said,  briefly.  "  Beside 
that  nothing  matters !" 

But  she  still  mused,  and  spoke  again  in 
the  same  grave,  lingering  tone. 

"  Think  what  we  are  to  each  other !  not 
lifeless  things,  to  be  found  and  lost,  but  each 
is  created  the  other's  inmost  life,  closer  and 
surer  the  more  all  else  falls  from  us.  And 
our  happiness  can  never  fail,  for  it  is  built 
on  no  care  for  our  own  gain,  but  on  the  will 
of  each  for  the  well-being  of  the  other,  and 
so  it  must  grow  greater  through  eternity." 

These  words  opened  the  very  heart  of 
love,  which  wills  all  it  has  to  be  another's, 
and  feels  that  other's  delight  as  its  own. 
Through  the  years  of  his  after-life  Strath- 
spey could  always  recall  Yolande  as  she 
then  appeared,  stationed  on  a  little  emi- 
nence above  him,  illuminated  by  the  mel- 
low sunshine  and  relieved  against  the  glo- 


i  ;o 

ries  of  the  sky.  And  he  seemed  to  see,  as  it 
were,  the  sky  open  around  her,  and  a  gath- 
ering of  many  faces  of  pure  light,  of  aspect 
resembling  hers,  and  speaking  in  harmony 
through  her  voice.  It  did  not  seem  strange 
at  the  time,  so  permeated  with  life  were  all 
things.  But  blessed  is  the  lover  who  can 
thus  behold  his  mistress  framed  in  heaven 
and  at  one  with  angels ! 

As  she  ceased  speaking  the  vision  passed 
into  natural  elements ;  the  seraphic  faces 
were  a  concourse  of  fleecy  clouds,  and  the 
choiring  voices  that  inner  pulsation  of  dis- 
tant bird  and  insect  song  which  in  summer 
fills  the  ear  without  our  consciously  hearing 
it.  Yolande  put  her  horse  in  motion,  and 
was  once  more  the  simple  girl  that  he  loved 
with  all  his  heart. 

"  Come,  let  us  ride,"  said  she ;  "  this  is 
our  enchanted  kingdom.  Come,  Sir  Angus !" 

He  caught  from  her  tone  the  contagion  of 
pure  youthful  joy  in  existence.  Joy  welled 
forth  in  him  like  a  brimming  river,  not  self- 


centred,  but  seeking  to  send  abroad  currents 
of  delight  to  sweeten  and  refresh  the  world. 

"  Where  shall  we  ride  ?"  asked  he. 

"  I  want  to  show  you  the  place  we  are  to 
live  in.  Until  you're  ready  to  come  for 
good,  I  shall  do  the  best  I  can  with  it ;  but 
of  course  that  is  nothing  to  what  it  will  be 
when  we've  lived  in  it  together  for  a  while. 
It's  lovely,  though,  even  now." 

Without  fully  understanding  what  she 
meant,  he  rode  on  beside  her.  What  a 
morning  for  a  ride  ! 

Her  horse  was  pure  white,  with  points  of 
an  Arab.  But  Strathspey,  who  from  his 
youth  had  loved  horses,  and  whose  own 
Cusha  was  not  easily  to  be  matched,  had 
never  seen  an  animal  approaching  this  in 
beauty  and  power.  Cusha  hardly  seemed  to 
belong  to  the  same  order  of  beings.  This 
was  a  horse  such  as  poets  say  Pegasus  is — 
all  airy  fleetness,  symmetry,  and  grace,  in 
whose  dark  eyes  was  the  fire  of  unquench- 
able courage,  and  yet  the  gentleness  of  a 


172 

great  white  dove.  Wings  he  needed  not ; 
though  when  Strathspey  was  not  looking 
directly  at  him,  he  could  half  fancy  a  feath- 
ery sweep  of  snowy  pinions  which,  with  a 
single  wave,  could  send  horse  and  rider 
heavenward  through  the  diamond  air.  He 
seemed  made  for  Yolande,  so  perfectly  fit- 
ted to  her  were  his  spirit  and  splendor.  If 
her  stainless  mind  had  conceived  and  given 
body  to  an  ideal  steed,  thus  and  not  other- 
wise must  he  have  appeared. 

Cusha,  who  had  never  been  lacking  in 
courage,  was  at  first  not  like  herself  in  the 
presence  of  her  new  associate  ;  she  was  much 
disturbed,  and  trembled  perceptibly  as  she 
moved.  Noticing  this,  Yolande  spoke  to 
her  in  a  soothing  voice  by  name  (how  did 
she  know  her  name?),  and  soon  the  mare 
quieted  down,  and  kept  on  as  best  she  might 
beside  her  shining  companion. 

"  What  an  air  this  is  !"  exclaimed  Strath- 
spey, taking  in  a  long  breath  of  it.  "  When 
I  started  out  this  morning  I  was  feeling 


173 

limp  and  shaky  as  an  old  lay-figure;  but 
now  I'm  elastic  and  keen  as  a  boy.  I  could 
ride  with  you  right  up  the  side  of  that  great 
cloud,  and  jump  off  the  top  into  the  blue 
sky !  Is  it  a  cloud,  or  is  it  a  snow  mountain  ? 
I  never  was  alive  till  now !" 

"  We'll  visit  the  stars  together,"  returned 
Yolande,  "  and  drive  comets  in  our  chariot, 
four-in-hand.  Delightful  people  live  over 
there  in  the  Pleiades,  and  one  of  the  planets 
there  has  nine  moons.  Then  there's  a  place 
in  Orion  where  we  can  sit  out  on  the  great 
silver  terrace  after  sunset,  and  see  a  solar 
system  being  made,  over  opposite." 

"And  how  shall  we  get  home  at  night?" 
inquired  he.  "  Shall  we  coast  down  the  zo- 
diac on  a  meteor?" 

"  We  can  make  our  thoughts  into  an  eagle, 
and  ride  in  the  warm  feathers  between  his 
wings.  Nothing  else  can  carry  us  so  swiftly, 
or  keep  us  so  comfortable  through  the  cold 
place  on  the  other  side  of  the  Milky  Way." 

"  And  how  homelike  it  will  seem  when  we 


174 

have  passed  Neptune  and  Uranus,  and  see 
the  lamps  lighted  in  Saturn  and  Jupiter  as 
we  pass  by !  We  must  keep  our  eagle  well 
in  hand,  or  he  will  plunge  us  into  the  sun.  I 
think  I'll  have  a  net  stretched  between  Mars 
and  Venus,  in  case  of  our  forgetting." 

They  looked  at  each  other  and  laughed. 
"  It's  a  small  universe,  after  all,  compared 
with  our  own !"  said  she,  sending  him  a 
heavenly  glance.  Paradise  rioted  in  his  soul. 

Down  a  gentle  descent  they  rode  into  a 
vale  of  fairy-land.  Slender  trees  spread  deli- 
cate boughs  over  their  heads,  laden  with 
large  blossoms.  Through  these  the  light, 
descending,  cast  rainbow  glows  upon  them. 
Now  he  saw  a  rosy  flush  envelop  her  as  she 
was  swept  along ;  now  she  plunged  into  an 
effulgence  of  aerial  gold  ;  now  for  an  instant 
she  was  bathed  in  amethyst ;  and  anon  a 
snow-white  splendor  was  shed  around  her, 
and  suited  her  best  of  all.  To  right  and  left 
meanwhile  opened  myriad- columned  aisles 
of  a  sylvan  temple,  resounding  with  stormy 


ecstasies  of  bird  music;  and  yonder,  surely, 
the  pearly  flank  of  a  wood-nymph  glanced 
amidst  the  verdure,  and  the  tanned  shoulder 
of  a  smiling  pursuing  faun.  All  nature,  at 
times,  puts  on  a  human  glamour,  and  leads  a 
dance  of  delectable  masqueraders  through 
her  mystic  solitudes.  Horny-eyed  terrestri- 
als see  them  not,  but  to  the  fine  perception 
of  lovers  they  are  exquisitely  visible. 

Emerging  from  this  glade,  they  skirted 
the  base  of  a  tall  cliff,  and  came  suddenly 
upon  a  rocky  pool,  into  which  leaped  joyful- 
ly down  the  frosty  rush  of  a  cataract.  The 
terraces  of  gray-stone  over  which  it  tumbled 
had  become  clothed  with  arras  of  iridescent 
moss,  on  which  gem -like  drops  vibrated; 
torrents  of  fine -wrought  maidenhair  poured 
from  the  oozy  clefts,  and  giant  ferns  spanned 
the  basin  with  arching  fronds.  Glancing 
over  and  between  enamelled  bowlders,  the 
stream  kicked  up  its  silvery  heels  and  frol- 
icked across  the  road,  to  disappear  in  deep- 
tinted  sedge  on  the  other  side,  setting  the 


1 76 

tall  stems  of  purple  irises  and  scarlet  car- 
dinal -  flowers  a  -  quiver.  To  this  spot  sun- 
shine came  but  in  golden  disks  and  patches, 
variegating  the  transparent  green  of  the 
shadows.  But  glancing  up  through  the  in- 
terstices of  broad,  enroofing  leaves,  you  could 
catch  glimpses  of  a  velvet  azure  sky. 

Cusha  stooped  her  pretty  head  to  drink, 
drawing  the  sweet  water  into  her  silken 
throat  with  pleasant  sighs;  but  the  white 
steed  barely  tasted  it  (out  of  courtesy,  as  it 
were),  doubtless  preferring  to  slake  his  thirst 
on  the  heights  where  the  clouds  of  heaven 
are  first  distilled  into  liquid  crystal.  Mean- 
while a  colony  of  purple  violets  despatched 
an  embassy  of  priceless  perfume  to  Yolande, 
and  a  blackbird,  too  shy  to  be  seen,  trilled 
out  a  tumult  of  melodious  welcome,  which 
the  skilfullest  human  musician  would  have 
tortured  his  instrument  in  vain  to  echo. 

"  What  is  that  delicious  whispering  under- 
tone that  flows  in  every  few  moments?" 
asked  Strathspey.  "  Except  I  know  that 


177 

the  sea  is  miles  and  miles  away,  I  should 
hope  it  was  the  ocean  surf  upon  the  shore." 

Yolande  lifted  her  chin  with  a  princely 
smile. 

"  If  my  beloved  wants  the  sea,  he  shall 
have  it,"  she  said.  "  Didn't  I  tell  you  this 
was  our  enchanted  kingdom,  which  serves 
our  wishes  in  all  things  ?  Come  with  me." 

She  cantered  on  across  the  brook,  fling- 
ing up  a  glitter  of  spray  as  she  passed,  and 
so  forward  to  where  the  road  curved  round 
the  profile  of  the  steep,  he  following.  On 
doubling  the  point,  there  was  revealed  what 
seemed  a  miracle.  A  deep  bay,  hitherto 
concealed  by  an  intermediate  promontory, 
had  made  its  way  far  inland  from  the  gen- 
eral coast -line,  and  brought  its  blue -green 
depths  of  waters  almost  to  their  feet.  The 
shore  was  precipitous,  and  the  road  went  in 
and  out  along  the  face  of  the  sea-front  at  a 
height  of  some  fifty  feet  above  the  tide. 
The  waves  lapped  narrow  beaches  of  coral 
sand,  and  great  fragments  of  coral  rock  rose 


up  islet-wise  out  of  the  flood,  tufted  and 
fringed  with  tropic  green.  Looking  down 
from  their  elevation  into  the  sheltered  in- 
lets of  the  bay,  they  saw  below  the  surface 
the  luxuriant  color  and  strange  graces  of 
life  under  sea :  fish,  blue-tailed  and  orange- 
fmned,  or  rose-pink  from  stem  to  stern,  with 
keels  of  silver ;  creatures  like  crystal  bells, 
with  long-depending  streamers,  purple  and 
gold  ;  anemones  swaying  their  jewelled  ten- 
tacles sheaf-like  in  the  translucent  currents ; 
great  shells,  rosy-lipped  and  pearl-spired ;  sea- 
weeds of  all  hues  and  shapes,  beneath  whose 
shelter  weird  crabs  gathered  their  skeleton 
claws  in  ambush.  And  then  they  looked 
farther  off  over  the  glossy  backs  of  turquoise 
heavings  and  sapphire  subsidings,  a  mile  or 
more,  to  where  the  outer  reef  turned  to  long 
lines  of  snowy  thunder  the  rolling  onset  of 
ocean.  Farther  yet  the  dark-blue  line  stood 
clear  against  the  pearly  pallor  of  the  horizon, 
whence  blew  a  breeze  full  of  such  tameless 
life  as  made  the  blood  caper  in  the  veins 


179 

and  the  heart  yearn  with  mysterious  long- 
ings to  sail  forth  and  be  lost  in  those  august 
solitudes. 

To  the  left  the  long  line  of  cliffs  deployed, 
white-footed  and  shaggy-browed,  upon  the 
level  reaches,  fading  away  from  greens, 
through  purples,  to  evanescent  blues.  From 
their  summits,  seeming  incorporate  with 
them,  opalescent  castles  aspired  flame -like 
in  the  magic  light.  Close  at  hand  dipped 
and  soared  keen-winged  gulls,  their  breasts 
pure  as  the  salt  wind  and  foam  on  which 
they  lived. 

Strathspey  gazed  and  gazed.  "  Is  this 
the  world?"  murmured  he. 

"  The  world  marriage  makes,"  said  Yo- 
lande,  in  a  voice  that  spoke  rather  to  his 
heart  than  ear. 

Leisurely,  as  though  borne  on  happy  mus- 
ings, they  rode  along  the  windings  of  the 
stately  coast  until  they  crossed  a  tall  bridge 
and  saw  a  cleft  deeply  penetrating  the  face 
of  the  land.  Up  this  they  rode. 


i8o 

Here  prevailed  coolness  and  soft  shadow. 
A  brook — a  succession  of  little  waterfalls 
plashing  into  clear  pools — on  whose  margin 
blue  flowers  clustered  and  bearded  mosses 
hung,  passed  downward  beside  them  as 
they  mounted.  High  up  wide  boughs  inter- 
laced, and  every  leaf  was  still.  The  riders, 
too,  were  silent,  and  drew  more  closely  to- 
gether. With  the  shadows  their  mood  be- 
came more  intimate,  but  more  serious,  also. 
They  were  passing  from  one  vision  of  life  to 
another,  and  were  sensible  of  their  mutual 
dependence.  One  of  the  secret  felicities  of 
lovers  is  to  be  still  and  know  that  love  is  all. 

Twice  or  thrice,  through  a  gap  in  the  foli- 
age, as  through  a  window  in  a  tower,  they 
saw  a  wide  and  wider  gleam  of  the  beauty 
from  which  they  were  receding ;  but  of 
what  awaited  them  they  could  surmise 
nothing.  Gradually  the  atmosphere  became 
less  slumberous,  the  light  stronger,  and  little 
breezes  ventured  down  between  the  enclos- 
ing walls  to  learn  who  visited  their  eyries. 


r8i 

The  horses  sniffed  the  air  and  struck  their 
hoofs  sharply  on  the  firm  white  road.  A  few 
minutes  later  they  had  surmounted  the  as- 
cent, and  were  trotting  briskly  along  a  level 
way,  which  debouched  upon  a  lofty  upland. 
It  was  a  mount  of  vision,  from  which  the 
various  regions  of  their  wanderings  lay  re- 
vealed, as  well  as  others  hitherto  unknown. 

But  Strathspey,  disregarding  the  wide-ex- 
tended beauty  of  the  past  and  the  remote, 
fixed  his  eyes  upon  what  immediately  con- 
fronted him. 

Nothing  could  have  been  more  unexpected 
than  this  noble  object,  and  yet,  no  sooner 
was  it  seen  than  it  took  its  place  among  its 
surroundings  as  if  the  latter  had  been  called 
into  existence  especially  to  adorn  it.  It 
seemed  a  natural  growth,  the  key  and  cul- 
mination of  the  scene.  It  harmonized  earth 
and  sky,  and  was  familiar  with  the  sun.  It 
supplied  the  human  element,  without  which 
nature  is  but  stem  without  flower.  And  as 
Strathspey  looked  upon  it,  tears  came  to  his 


182 

eyes ;  because,  though  now  seen  for  the  first 
time,  it  touched  the  chord  of  home  in  his 
heart.  Surely  the  roots  of  his  being  were  en- 
twined with  these  foundations  ;  memories  of 
infancy,  of  father  and  mother,  lurked  in  the 
depths  of  those  windows ;  here  were  walls 
which  had  witnessed  the  games  and  musings 
of  his  boyhood,  and  porches  and  gables  in 
which  his  young  manhood  had  plotted  con- 
quests of  the  world.  Whatever  in  his  life 
had  been  innocent,  generous,  and  good  was 
related  to  the  form  and  substance  of  this 
gracious  structure,  and  yet  all  was  new  where 
nothing  was  strange :  for  here  was  a  future 
interpreting  what  had  gone  before,  and  steep- 
ing past  ideals  in  its  own  rich  atmosphere. 
Up  yonder  stairways  of  promise  his  soul 
ascended  to  shining  turrets  of  fulfilment, 
whence  he  saw,  vivifying  every  part,  the 
might  of  his  love  for  Yolande.  In  the 
countless  qualities  of  purity  and  grace, 
which  he  might  dimly  have  desired  but 
was  impotent  to  create,  he  recognized  this 


as  her  home  as  well  as  his  —  the  home  and 
symbol  of  their  union. 

Suddenly,  without  warning,  his  heart  began 
to  beat  heavily.  He  felt  the  approach  of 
some  untoward  event.  He  turned  quickly 
to  Yolande,  trying  to  command  himself. 

"  Where  are  we — what  is  this  ?"  he  asked. 
"  Is  all  real  that  has  been  going  on  to-day  ? 
It  seems  silly  to  ask,  but  I've  been  ill — may- 
be I'm  not  straight  yet.  I've  been  taking 
things  as  they  came,  but  now — I. can't  seem 
to  account  for — I  don't —  " 

He  was  unable  to  go  on.  Some  change 
was  at  hand.  Despite  an  indistinctness  in 
his  vision,  he  could  discern  the  face  of  Yo- 
lande meeting  with  steadfast  eyes  the  trouble 
of  his  appeal.  But  her  look  also  expressed 
a  passion  of  loving  sympathy  that  warned 
him  his  fear  was  not  groundl-ess. 

He  heard  her  say,  "  All  we  have  seen  and 
done  is  real  and  true,  beloved.  This  is  our 
country  and  our  home." 

He  divined  something  ominous  waiting  be- 


1 84 

hind  her  words,  and  as  a  wounded  man  would 
pluck  from  his  body  the  arrow  that  prolongs 
the  agony  of  life,  so  did  he  snatch  at  the 
knowledge  of  the  worst. 

"  But  there's  something  between  us — I  feel 
it !"  he  said,  with  a  break  of  the  voice. 

She  made  no  response. 

"Yolande,  I've  felt  it  from  the  first— we 
cannot  marry — in  this  world — never,"  he  said, 
after  a  silence,  in  a  dull  tone.  "  I  should  fail — 
I  should  disenchant  you — I'm  not  worthy. 
God  won't  permit  it !" 

She  was  still  mute.  A  sort  of  helpless 
frenzy  seized  him. 

"  I  can't  give  you  up  !"  he  said,  fiercely. 

Her  eyes  no  longer  met  his — they  looked 
beyond  or  above  him,  and  her  face  was  like 
marble,  giving  no  sign.  The  time  had  come 
to  him — as  come  it  must  to  all — when  in  the 
solitude  of  his  spirit  he  must  meet  and  know 
God  ;  and  upon  that  awful  meeting  no  other 
soul  dare  intrude. 

He  bent  forward,  closing  his  eyes,  till  his 


forehead  rested  on  Cusha's  mane,  which  he 
had  grasped  with  his  right  hand. 

In  this  final  struggle  the  temptations  of 
the  past  came  back  with  greater  power.  For 
it  seemed  to  him  that  on  the  issue  hung  the 
fate  of  Yolande's  soul.  If  he  clung  to  her, 
she  would  go  downward  with  him ;  if  he  re- 
linquished her,  she  would  go  from  him  to 
God.  He  was  now  to  choose  whether  he 
would  lose  her  to  heaven,  or  have  her  in 
hell — if  where  she  was  hell  could  be  ! 

To  give  her  up — for  her  own  sake — but  oh, 
to  give  her  up ! 


XVI 

"'Our  little  Life  is  rounded  with  a  Sleep'— 

Our  larger  Life  is  from  a  Sleep,  a  Waking : 
I  love  you!    Hark!    Deep  calleth  unto  deep— 
*  Earth    is    Love's    Dream    of    Life  —  Death, 
Love's  Day  breaking!'" 

lOLANDE,  are  you  there?" 

"  I  am  here,"  came  the  well-loved 
voice.  He  looked  up.  The  day  had  be- 
come overcast,  and  Yolande  had  drawn 
back,  so  as  to  be  out  of  his  sight.  From 
a  ravine  at  his  feet  arose  a  sluggish  mist ; 
opposite,  five  hundred  yards  away,  a  mass  of 
castellated  rock  assumed  a  fanciful  likeness 
to  a  human  habitation.  He  had  but  closed 
his  eyes  a  few  moments,  to  open  them  on  this 
duskiness  and  change ! 

He  too  had  changed.     The  sensation  of 
abounding  life  was  gone ;  the  weakness  and 


weariness  felt  on  awakening  that  morning 
had  come  back  with  added  weight.  It  was 
as  if  old  age  had  unawares  descended  upon 
him.  With  the  feebleness,  however,  had 
come  a  composure  and  resignation,  as  of 
one  who,  having  striven  long  and  passion- 
ately to  find  some  great  treasure  in  the 
world,  has  at  length  laid  aside  the  fierce 
longing  that  dominated  him,  and  henceforth 
has  no  other  aim  than  to  accept  quietly 
whatever  life  is  given  him,  and  to  die,  when 
his  time  comes,  gratefully.  All  will  to  grasp 
what  had  seemed  his  own,  all  questionings, 
even  the  ache  of  surrender,  had  departed 
from  his  soul.  And  as  the  moon  rises  over 
the  ruins  of  a  battle-field,  so  a  faint  light  of 
peace  rose  upon  ruins  of  what  his  heart  had 
fought  for  and  lost,  and  chastened  them  to 
a  grave  seemliness. 

Cusha  lifted  her  head,  gazed  this  way  and 
that,  and  whinnied.  She  missed  the  white 
steed. 

"Yolande,"  he  said  again,  "it  has  seemed 


1 88 

more  like  heaven  than  earth — what  you've 
shown  me  to-day.  I  think  it  must  have  been 
your  companionship  that  transfigured  every- 
thing. But  you've  shown  me  too  the  dis- 
tance between  us.  It  isn't  in  me — I'm  too 
old  and  spoilt — to  live  your  life  with  you. 
You've  been  illuminating  me  with  your  own 
light,  until  you've  made  yourself  (and  me,  al- 
most) believe  me  a  very  fine  creature;  but 
the  sober  truth  is  I'm  a  commonplace  sort  of 
fellow,  and  I  found  you  many  years  too  late. 
You're  going  up,  I  down ;  every  day  would 
leave  us  further  apart ;  and  I  won't  be  such 
a  brute  as  to  take  advantage  of  your  illu- 
sions, and  tie  you  down  by — " 

It  seemed  to  him  that  she  spoke  ;  but  she 
was  still  placed  somewhere  out  of  his  range 
of  vision,  and  after  a  pause  he  added  : 

"But  I  may  be  of  use  to  you  in  some  ways 
without  the  risk  of  becoming  a  drag  on  you. 
There  were  beautiful  young  queens  in  the 
old  times ;  there  were  beautiful  young  queens 
of  whom  a  thousand  knights  asked  no  other 


favor  than  privilege  to  fight  and  die  for  them. 
You  are  worthier  than  they  of  devotion,  my 
dear,  and  I  am  but  a  single  champion,  and 
not  good  for  much  ;  but  upon  what  there  is  of 
me  you  can  depend  for  as  much — or  as  little 
— as  you  want.  The  gage  of  favor  you  hung 
round  my  neck  is  still,  and  always  will  be, 
there.  1  mean,  that  as  your  friend  I  sha'n't 
be  afraid  to  grow  old,  and  you  won't  need  to 
shorten  your  young  steps  not  to  outstrip 
mine.  Like  the  good  fairy,  I  shall  turn  up 
at  the  right  moments,  and  at  no  others ! 
And  long  before  I'm  ready  for  a  better  world, 
you  will  have  made  in  this  a  heaven  for  some 
honest  young  chap,  and  we  all  three  shall 
be  happy  and  comfortable.  Well,  isn't  that 
good  sense?" 

Thinking  it  might  embarrass  Yolande  if  he 
turned  to  look  at  her  at  this  moment  of  giv- 
ing her  her  freedom,  he  sat  after  speaking  as 
before,  with  his  eyes  on  the  ravine,  from  which 
mists  continued  sluggishly  to  arise. 

Her  first  words  were  so  gently  uttered  it 


190 

was  sweet  to  hear  them,  though  their  pur- 
port seemed  but  a  recognition  of  what  he 
had  proposed. 

"  You  are  right — our  marriage  cannot  be 
here  ;  a  wisdom  greater  than  ours  has  de- 
cided that.  But  it  was  I,  not  you,  that  was 
unfit.  You  have  met  the  world  and  known 
it,  right  and  wrong,  and  you  are  strong  and 
weak  as  men  are  ;  but  my  life  was  all  thought 
and  hopes  and  wonderings — I  wasn't  fit  for 
real  things.  I  couldn't  have  made  you  hap- 
py," she  concluded,  in  a  tone  like  the  sound 
of  love  itself. 

"  The  only  fault  in  you  is  that  God  made 
you  for  heaven,  and  you  live  on  earth  ;  mine 
is  the  other  way — I  tried  to  enter  a  heaven  I 
didn't  belong  in,"  interrupted  he,  resentful  of 
criticism  of  her  even  from  herself.  "  Thank 
God,  I  came  to  my  senses  in  time  !" 

"  Persons  whose  souls  belong  together  are 
sometimes  parted  by  their  bodies,"  said  she. 
"  If  you  and  I  could  meet  as  spirits  do,  we 
should  meet  indeed  !  Spirits  don't  grow  old. 


or  have  misunderstandings  and  disappoint- 
ments. We  might  marry  then,  and  have  no 
such  hinderances  as  we  otherwise  might." 

"  My  body  is  no  favorite  of  mine,"  said  he, 
with  a  half-smile  and  a  shake  of  the  head, 
"  but  here  it  is,  and  I  must  put  up  with  it !" 

"  But  even  while  our  bodies  are  serving  us 
here  our  spirits  live  in  the  world  of  spirits, 
and  sometimes,  when  our  earthly  senses  are 
closed,  we  see  and  hear  spiritual  things." 

"Ah,  but  after  all,  Yolande,"  he  said,  with 
a  sigh,  "  earth  will  have  her  day  with  us,  and 
when  it's  over  you  will  have  passed  beyond 
my  reach.  Let  us  not  speak  of  it !" 

But  she  persisted.  "You  said  just  now 
that  this  day  had  seemed  to  you  not  like  a 
day  of  earth,  beloved  !" 

This  speech — he  scarce  knew  why — singu- 
larly moved  him.  That  u  beloved,"  spoken  as 
she  spoke  it,  had  brought  a  breath  of  balm 
from  the  forbidden  Paradise ;  and  the  inti- 
mation of  the  preceding  words  was  strange. 
Why  did  she  argue  thus?  It  hardly  accord- 


192 

ed  with  the  philosophic  friendliness  he  had 
offered,  and  she  had  seemed  tacitly  to  accept. 

"There  are,  no  doubt,  moments  and  hours 
when  earth  fades  and  something  better 
seems  to  brighten  out,"  said  he  ;  "  but,  as  you 
see,  the  mists  close  round  us  again.  God, 
had  He  chosen,  could  as  well  have  matched 
our  bodies  as  our  souls  ;  but  since  He  has  not 
done  both,  I  must  suppose  He  has  done 
neither.  He  will  care  for  you  better  than  I 
could.  Amen !" 

"Ah,  but  we  love  each  other  —  we  love 
each  other !"  she  cried  out,  with  a  kind  of 
heavenly  triumph.  "  Love  is  stronger  than 
earth  —  he  is  a  spirit!  Tell  me,  beloved,  is 
it  not  me  and  not  my  body  that  you  love? 
Yes,  I  know  it,  for  have  you  not  loved  me 
to-day?  And  if  you  saw  me  not  through 
that  veil,  but  as  I  am,  and  heard  me  say  I 
love  you,  and  saw  me  alive  in  a  world  more 
beautiful  than  that  valley  where  first  we  met, 
and  knew  I  was  waiting  for  you  in  this  glo- 
rious world  in  a  house  built  for  us  by  our 


193 

love,  and  yet  that  I  should  be  always  near 
you,  both  when  the  eyes  of  your  own  spirit 
were  open  and  when  they  were  closed, 
nearer  than  on  earth  I  could  ever  have 
come,  and  safe  from  all  perils  of  my  own 
ignorance  or  your  noble  misgivings,  so  that 
our  union  even  while  you  stayed  here  would 
grow  each  hour  more  entire,  and  at  last, 
when  time  had  dissolved  the  final  barrier, 
perfect,  like  the  marriage  of  fire  with  light 
— if  God  granted  to  us  to  know  all  this  as 
of  our  own  knowledge,  would  you  not  be 
content  ?  Oh,  my  beloved,  would  you  not 
rejoice  and  thank  Him,  and  understand  that 
in  seeming  to  part  us  He  had  in  truth  made 
our  parting  impossible  ?  Beloved,  would  you 
grieve  to  lose  a  shadow,  gaining  this  reality? 
Would  you  grieve  because  the  waves  must 
wash  away  the  print  of  my  foot  on  the  sands, 
when  you  held  to  your  heart  me  myself? 
You  have  seen  me  this  day ;  I  am  alive  for- 
ever, and  I  am  yours ;  but,  dearest  husband 
that  is  to  be,  that  shadow  of  me — that  foot- 


194 

print — be  glad  with  me  that  I  have  left  it 
behind  me,  and  am  where  no  waves  of  time 
can  change  me.  Be  happy,  as  I  am,  that  I 
am  no  longer  in  the  distance  somewhere  out- 
side you,  far  or  near,  but  in  your  heart  of 
hearts — in  the  heaven  that  our  two  immor- 
tal hearts  have  made !" 

Her  voice,  welling  forth  from  a  region  in- 
terior to  mortal  sense,  softened  into  silence. 
He  knew  the  truth  at  last. 

He  slowly  lifted  his  arms,  and  there  broke 
from  him  a  great  and  solemn  cry — a  cry  of 
anguish,  of  love,  of  awe,  of  fearful  joy:  "  Yo- 
lande — Yolande — Yolande  !  God,  my  God  ! 
Oh,  my  love,  my  love !" 

It  rose,  that  mortal  cry,  and  sank  again 
into  the  depths  of  the  ravine  on  whose  brink 
he  hung.  There  was  nothing  mortal  to  hear 
it,  except  Cusha,  who  started  and  stirred 
restlessly  beneath  him,  setting  forward  and 
back  her  slender  ears.  The  ghostly  mists 
stole  round  him,  making  phantasmal  the 
world  from  which  the  soul  of  his  soul  was 


195 

gone.  From  below  came  the  muffled  roar- 
ing of  a  mountain  stream.  It  was  the  same 
in  which,  three  days  before,  he  had  thought 
to  end  his  own  earthly  journey.  And  here, 
indeed,  in  one  sense,  it  might  be  said  to  end. 
For  although,  during  yet  many  years,  he 
would  be  seen  living  as  a  man  among  men, 
doing  well  what  came  to  him  to  do  —  re- 
marked, moreover,  as  one  of  unusual  seren- 
ity and  quiet  kindliness — yet  on  the  banks 
of  this  wild  river  he  met  the  only  end  to 
which  the  progress  of  an  immortal  soul  is 
subject  —  recognition  of  the  infinity  within 
his  finiteness.  To  such  a  one  the  world 
becomes  thenceforth  a  contemplation  rather 
than  a  struggle,  and  years  do  not  seem  long, 
filled  as  they  are  with  the  secret  music  of 
eternity. 

Meanwhile  Strathspey  sat  silent  and  in- 
active, save  that  now  and  then  he  would 
lean  forward  to  pat  Cusha's  neck.  The  man 
in  that  hour  found  support  in  the  simple  an- 
imal's companionship.  Without  it,  the  first 


196 

sense  of  loneliness  might  have  been  too 
heavy. 

All  day  he  had  been  led  by  a  spirit! 
From  the  moment  when  his  life  had  been 
saved  from  the  falling  tree  until  they  halted 
on  the  brink  of  the  ravine  he  had  dwelt  as 
a  spirit  among  spiritual  things.  For  that 
world,  though  unperceived,  abides  always 
not  elsewhere  than  where  we  are.  To  us 
at  all  times,  have  we  but  eyes  to  see,  may 
be  visible,  as  to  the  young  man  who  was 
with  Elisha,  the  mountain  and  the  chariots 
of  fire. 

She  had  taken  him  with  her  to  her  own 
home  and  country,  which  were  also  to  be 
his.  And  verily  his  heart  had  burned  with- 
in him  on  the  way,  as  of  old  did  the  hearts 
of  those  who,  going  to  Emmaus,  were  joined 
by  One  that  discoursed  with  them  concern- 
ing the  Scriptures,  revealing  the  spirit  with- 
in the  letter.  And  he  too  had  rejoiced  in 
the  revelation,  and  had  faith  in  the  truth  of 
the  things  he  had  seen  and  heard.  They 


197 

were  spirit  and  life,  whereof  the  things  of 
this  world  are  but  shadows. 

And  where  was  Yolande?  She  was  in  her 
home  and  his,  safe  from  harm,  disenchant- 
ment, and  vicissitude,  awaiting  his  coming 
and  preparing  for  it.  But  her  shadow  that 
must  pass  away — the  print  of  her  foot  that 
must  be  washed  out — where  was  that  ?  Was 
it  by  chance  that  he  had  been  guided  to  this 
spot,  and  left  there  ? 

He  roused  himself:  his  face  flushed  as 
the  conviction  dawned  in  his  mind  that 
upon  him  had  been  laid  a  sad  and  holy 
office.  Upon  whom  else  should  it  be  laid? 
His  gaze  expanded,  and  he  seemed  to  see 
in  fleeting  vision  the  maidenly  figure  on  her 
horse  galloping  on  the  road  to  the  moun- 
tain, ignorant  of  the  peril  of  the  rotten 
bridge,  intent  only  upon  the  joyful  surprise 
she  would  give  her  lover.  Upon  that  bridge, 
tottering  to  its  fall,  what  messenger  of  di- 
vine love  veiled  in  mystery  had  met  and 
stopped  her  in  the  narrow  path !  Yet  no, 


198 

she  was  not  stopped,  for  her  love,  overpow- 
ering death,  had,  with  the  divine  permis- 
sion, prevailed  to  bear  her  on.  But  some- 
thing of  hers  she  had  left  behind  on  the 
way:  and  that  sacred  relic  he  was  now  to 
recover.  He  drew  a  long,  tremulous  breath; 
he  spoke  to  Cusha  ;  and  she,  sure-footed  and 
heedful,  began  to  descend  the  steep  decliv- 
ity by  a  rocky  track,  weaving  to  and  fro 
amidst  the  thick-growing  shrubbery. 

Slowly  during  some  hours  past  the  waters 
had  been  subsiding.  As  they  did  so,  many 
of  the  objects  which  they  were  carrying 
downward  were  left  upon  the  banks.  At 
a  certain  point  in  its  course  the  stream 
makes  a  sudden  bend,  to  pass  round  the 
base  of  a  tall,  conical  mass  of  white  lime- 
stone, which  rises  like  a  monument  above 
the  dark  surrounding  foliage.  But  its  lower 
parts  are  softened  by  green  mosses  and  the 
delicate  tracery  of  ferns.  At  its  foot  there 
is  a  little  area  of  pure  white  sand,  overhung 
by  broad  leaves  and  bordered  with  quaint 


199 

flowers.  High  on  each  side,  shutting  out 
the  world,  rise  the  steep,  tree-clad  walls  of 
the  cafton.  To  the  left,  two  paces  away, 
rushes  headlong  down  the  tumultuous  tor- 
rent. It  is  a  lovely  spot,  and  the  voices  of 
solitude-loving  birds  are  often  heard  there, 
embroidering  a  bright  pattern,  as  it  were, 
upon  the  mellow  monotone  of  the  rapids. 
And  here  a  man,  weary  of  the  world,  yet 
not  hating  it,  might  choose  to  sit  for  an 
hour,  sheltered  from  the  tropic  sun,  refresh- 
ed by  the  moist  air,  and  pleased  with  the 
contrast  between  the  foaming  rush  of  the 
waters  and  the  serene  immobility  of  the  tall 
rock  and  the  dewy  ferns  and  flowers. 

Strathspey,  having  reached  the  bottom 
of  the  ravine,  had  dismounted,  and,  tether- 
ing Cusha  to  a  bough,  had  crept  on  along 
the  margin  of  the  stream.  Sometimes  he 
sprang  lightly  from  one  bowlder  to  another; 
sometimes  he  swung  himself  across  a  gully 
by  the  aid  of  a  drooping  liana  ;  sometimes 
he  clung  to  the  overhanging  banks  by  means 


200 

of  the  crooked  roots  which  thrust  them- 
selves forth  from  the  loam.  He  made  his 
way  steadily  and  without  pause,  as  one  who 
knows  the  spot  to  which  he  is  bound. 

He  saw,  first,  the  pointed  spire  of  the 
white  rock ;  but  he  was  quite  close  to  it 
before  he  came  in  sight  of  the  little  beach 
at  its  foot.  He  looked,  and  uttered  a  low 
and  tender  exclamation,  not  of  surprise,  not 
of  horror,  in  which  loving  reverence  almost 
dominated  grief.  He  drew  near  gently,  as 
if  he  feared  to  disturb  the  slumber  of  one 
who,  in  that  quiet  and  beautiful  nook,  had 
dropped  unawares  asleep.  Having  reached 
the  little  white  strand,  he  pulled  off  his  cap 
and  knelt  down.  It  was  a  fitting  place  for 
prayer. 


THE  END 


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THE  IDIOT.  Illustrated.  16mo,  Cloth,  Ornamental,  $1  00. 

"The  Idiot"  continues  to  be  as  amusing  and  as  triumphantly  bright 
in  the  volume  called  after  his  name  as  in  "Coffee  and  Repartee."— 
Evangelist,  N.  Y. 

THE  WATER  GHOST,  AND  OTHERS.    Illustrated.    16mo, 

Cloth,  Ornamental,  $1  25. 

The  funny  side  of  the  ghost  genre  is  brought  out  with  originality,  and, 
considering  the  morbidity  that  surrounds  the  subject,  it  is  a  wholesome 
thing  to  offer  the  public  a  series  of  tales  letting  in  the  sunlight  of  laughter. 
— Hartford  Courant. 

THREE  WEEKS  IN  POLITICS.     Illustrated.    32mo,  Cloth, 

Ornamental,  50  cents. 

He  who  can  read  this  narrative  of  a  campaigners'  trials  without  laughing 
must  be  a  stoic  indeed.—  Philadelphia  Bulletin. 

COFFEE   AND   REPARTEE.      Illustrated.      32mo,  Cloth, 

Ornamental,  50  cents. 

Is  delightfully  free  from  conventionality ;  is  breezy,  witty,  and  pos- 
sessed of  an  originality  both  genial  and  refreshing.—  Saturday  Evening 
Gazette,  Boston. 

PUBLISHED  BY  HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  NEW  YORK 

4®=-  For  sale  by  all  booksellers,  or  will  be  mailed  by  the  publishers, 
postage  prepaid,  on  receipt  of  the  price. 


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